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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25145821">Things of Beauty</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaiein/pseuds/kaiein'>kaiein</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Things That Can't Be Seen [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, At this point anyways but still, Brotherly Love, Child Abuse, Dean Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, Dean Winchester Loves Sam Winchester, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hunters &amp; Hunting, Insecure Sam Winchester, John Winchester Being an Asshole, Magic, Neglect, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Dean, POV Sam, Pre-Slash, Protective Dean Winchester, Rating May Change, Rituals, Sam Winchester Has Powers, Sam Winchester Has Self-Worth Issues, Sam Winchester Loves Dean Winchester, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Spells &amp; Enchantments, Unrequited Love, pre-wincest - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 02:48:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>41,147</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25145821</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaiein/pseuds/kaiein</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There's always been something different about Sam. There are things that he knows and sees, things that he can do, that aren't normal. Sometimes they feel like magic, or power, but most of the time...he knows they're a curse. He learns quickly that these are things that he's not allowed to do. And there are things that he wants, beautiful things, that are sometimes right in front of him, but always out of his reach. And he's always known that these are things that he's not allowed to have.</p><p>Sam's just never fit, not even in a world of nomadic monster hunters who are forced to live outside the borders of the normal world. And worse, even within his own damaged, tightly-bound family—which itself is strange enough to be kept to the fringes of the hunting world—he's still an outsider.</p><p>There's only one person who doesn't keep him out, who seems to think he belongs. His perfect, beautiful big brother, Dean.</p><p>And that's the problem, really...because Dean is one of those things that Sam's not supposed to want.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester &amp; Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Things That Can't Be Seen [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1821571</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sam's first real memory is of Dean.</p><p>Of course it is. </p><p>Yet, it could've been of so many things. There was a lot that happened to him, to them, growing up, that was impactful, life-changing, noteworthy. And a lot of those things were violent, or scary, or sad, or lonely. Some of them were all of that at the same time.</p><p>And <em>any</em> of them might have gripped his barely-formed mind and taken root, rather than what actually had. He'd often wondered, over the years, how much it would have changed him, who he would have become, if one of <em>those</em> memories, instead, had ended up being the foundation on which everything that made <em>Sam</em> was built.</p><p>It's not like he didn't remember all of those other things. Just nothing before that first recollection. After that point they piled on fast and heavy, beginning in that early, tender year that followed. But that fundamental image, the one that <em>began</em> Sam, was like a lantern held up against the night. It didn't dispel the darkness, but it did hold it back a little. Maybe even enough.</p><p>Maybe.</p><p>It started in a kitchen; old, abandoned, all faded linoleum and chipped formica that had once been shades of teal and green and orange, white-painted cabinets long since started down the path to yellow. A scratched enamel sink under a dark window, tattered lace curtains drooping down one side. A plastic black-and-white clock on the wall that looked like a smiling cartoon cat, half its tail broken off and its eerily large eyes stuck pointing in different directions.</p><p>It started with a low, rough, familiar voice muttering syllables in a halting cadence. But they were just nonsense words, babble, like the kind Sam got yelled at if he tried to use them still.</p><p>There was light, too, but only in the center of the room, dim and flickering. Radiating from the three candles set on the tiny, rickety, round table. Two figures sat there; one tall and broad and dark, one small and slight and fair. </p><p>But, as Sam watched from a few feet away, a paintbrush was lifted to the face of the smaller figure, careful movements sweeping dark lines and curves in a complex shape on its forehead. And as the brush was lifted from skin, the shape lit up in a brilliant golden glow, warmer and purer than any light Sam had ever seen. It illuminated the small face it crowned, reflecting off of long eyelashes, outlining lips pressed together seriously, and gilding small, round cheeks. The tiny figure shivered.</p><p>Sam stilled; fingers halting in prying at the wooden tray that kept him trapped in the tall chair several feet away. His mouth was parted, his eyes were wide, reflecting the rich light he was staring at.</p><p>"<em>DE!!</em>" He called out, a little alarmed, but mostly excited, enthralled. He smacked the surface in front of him with chubby palms. "Dedededede..."</p><p>Two pairs of eyes turned to him, the lighter ones showing hints of greenish-amber in the glimmer, the darker ones still hidden in the shadow of their brows. A fond smile broke out over the small face, and even the bigger one looked amused, chuckling.</p><p>"Alright, Sammy; calm down, now. You have to be silent for Dean, ok? This is special, really important, and we need it to be <em>very quiet</em>. Understand?" Sam nodded, eyes big and solemn; placed his fingertip against his lips. The figure chuckled again, shaking its head. "That kid. Ok, now, Dean. Hold still for me. I have to get this exactly right."</p><p>Sam watched on silently as the nonsense words started up again; the brush was lifted from the small metal bowl to the small face again, and again. He gripped his lips between his teeth to keep from bursting out in delight as each shape drawn flared brightly gold, and then faded back into a more muted glow. Gripped the wood of the chair in his small hands tightly to keep from beating out the rhythm he was certain the voice should be following. Watched as the face and neck and arms and chest of the small figure (still so much bigger than Sam) was transformed by the glimmering lines and curves decorating it. Kept still and quiet; he didn't want to be sent out of the room, spanked, didn't want to miss this. He could be quiet, be good. He <em>wanted</em> to be good.</p><p>Because he understood already, even though he may not have had the words for it yet. This is beautiful.</p><p>Dean is beautiful.</p><p>There were never many beautiful things in Sam's life. Even before he could really understand the arbitrary nuances, the fundamental differences, that made some things <em>beautiful</em> and some things <em>ugly</em>; even when he was still young enough, fresh enough to the world, for everything to be suffused with that radiant shine of wonder and newness, even then, there weren't many things he'd known that were truly beautiful.</p><p>Sure, he saw, sometimes, glimpses of beauty. Little hints of something bigger and better than him, something that made him feel full up inside, like when he'd had enough to eat, and warm all over, like when Dean snuggled under blankets in the backseat with him when the car got cold in the winter.</p><p>He'd seen them through the window of the car: dusky, tall mountains etched against a purple horizon, moon caught all slivered and tawny between silver-white peaks. Or the stark lines of painted, striated buttes and arches, all red and orange, cutting into a vast pale sky in a white-yellow desert. Or the low, sweeping, barn-spotted hills under winter stars, ghostly layer of snow seeming to glow blue-white in the moonlight.</p><p>He'd seen them at the places they'd stopped at so briefly: the pond behind the motor-lodge outside of Savannah; fat toddler fingers pushed into the verdigrised copper water, balanced on the one of the flat, grey stones surrounding the edge, splashed by a tiny tinkling waterfall and shaded by a spanish-moss-dripped spreading oak, giggling as the big orange-and-white fish pucker-kissed his fingertips. Or the rambling old victorian house in Maine; roaming through rooms crumbling, full of dim forgotten corners and so many elaborate, fascinating details, so many textures under his tiny hands—the lush velvet leaves of the flocked wallpaper, the intricately-carved, dark wood whorls of the baseboards, the smooth, cold, veined stone surrounding the fireplaces.</p><p>Sometimes he'd seen them in the people they'd met: the deeply wrinkled skin on the fragile hands of the woman at the nursing home in Kentucky, who shared her cinnamon applesauce with Sam as she sat him on her lap. Or the kind, warm golden-brown of the eyes of the tall, dark-skinned man who helped him find Dean when he got lost at the crowded, jostling French Market in New Orleans. Or the shy, pretty smile of the girl with the russet curls who told him that there were secrets in the garden behind the dusty bed-and-breakfast they were staying in that week.</p><p>But those things were never <em>his</em>. He never had them, held them, never experienced them long enough to really <em>know</em> them, to understand them and figure out what it was that made them beautiful.</p><p>The scenery sped by so quickly, only ending up as flash-strobes of disjointed images in his memory. And, more often than not, they just traveled the monotonous, sterile, billboard-riddled interstate system, or found themselves bumping along potholes towards the single stoplights of rust-speckled, decaying towns.</p><p>The places they visited were never home, always so temporary, and his experiences and adventures in them just as abbreviated: yanked back from the edge of the water by a hand fisted in the back of his corduroy overalls, shaken roughly, drops spraying from his chubby fingertips and scrunched-shut eyes, because <em>what are you doing, you can't swim, you idiot, what if you'd fallen in</em> and <em>DEAN, where ARE YOU, fucking kids, I can't turn away for a minute</em>. Or the annoyed huff as he's tugged away from running his palms over the flaking, faded mural of a stately english garden, since <em>c'mon Sammy, Dad says it's time for dinner</em>, and <em>you shouldn't be playing here anyways, you could break something or get hurt</em>.</p><p>And, not to mention, all the times he'd been told of his stupidity for trusting people, for trying to get close: <em>don't pester this nice woman and take her food, I'll feed you later, so sorry m'am, he won't bother you anymore</em>. And <em>dammit, Sammy, you can't just let strangers take you by the hand and lead you off, you don't know what the hell they want, what if someone took you and you were gone forever? ...we won't tell Dad, though, ok? </em> And <em>who are you talking to, Sam, there's no one in here</em>, and muttered, more softly, as he walks away, <em>how did I end up with a kid like this, dammit.</em></p><p>And he doesn't even want to get into the overwhelming ugliness of most of what he's encountered. Not when it came to the things he saw, or the places he went. Especially not when it came to the people he met.</p><p>Ugliness, he knew <em>that</em> all too well.</p><p>But, despite all of that, it didn't mean that there was no beauty in his life. There was a great deal of it, in fact.</p><p>All the beauty he knew, all the beauty he'd ever had of his own, to understand and to hold, started with that first memory; started that night in that forgotten, decaying kitchen. Watching his family, his brother, blanketed in that small circle of warm light that seemed to hold them safe, protect them from the darkness in the corners, outside the windows. Watching silently as the beauty of that mystery unfolded in front of him.</p><p>Watching Dean.</p><p>Years later, when Sam's in third grade, and has to write a page about his favorite memory, he asks for Dean's help. Because Sam knows which is <em>his</em> favorite, but also knows by now that it's not one he can share with anyone outside of his family. And, at the moment, all he can seem to dredge up otherwise is full of horrors, great and small. </p><p>So he asks Dean what he would write about.</p><p>After some teasing about his best memories being of all the times Sam's embarrassed himself, and a well-aimed pink rubber eraser hitting him between the eyes, Dean quiets down and turns thoughtful.</p><p>"Well, I dunno what my <em>most</em> favorite memory would be, really. I guess..." He bites his lip, chews on it for a second, gaze directed absently into the distance. "I think it would prob'ly be my first memories? It musta been, like, when I was three and four maybe. They're...of Mom."</p><p>"Oh." Sam's chest gets a little tight. He speaks quietly, cautiously. Dean—Dean and Dad both—they don't talk about her much. Sam's seen her picture, the one that Dad keeps in his journal, a few times, but he knows so little about her. Just that she was pretty <em>(beautiful)</em>, with a smile that reminds of him of Dean's and wavy blonde hair. "What was she—what are they like?"</p><p>Dean smiles, maybe a little sad, but it's more than that. Warm, wistful; gaze still unfocused and distant. "Mostly...happy. Like...bright. She'd sing to me a lot, and, like, I didn't know the songs back then, but, when I hear 'em now, I can hear her voice singing them. Beatles, Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, um...Peter, Paul, and Mary, maybe..." Dean chuffs out a laugh. "I remember <em>Puff the Magic Dragon</em>, at least...I think I even remember Dad teasin' her about how she better sing me some manly music, too, not just sissy crap, but, I dunno, maybe I made that up."</p><p>Dean pauses, that bittersweet expression on his face, still, and Sam doesn't want him to get lost in it. He also doesn't want to miss this opportunity, if he can help it. "I dunno. He'd say somethin' like that." Dean spares him half a smile, still somewhere else in his head. "What...what else do you remember? What'd you guys do together?"</p><p>"Well, not a whole lot. I guess mostly just the normal stuff you do with a little kid. Like, legos, I remember we'd build castles an' fortresses and stuff. I wanted her to build me a car, but we didn't have enough black bricks, so she made me a little boat instead. Dad said it looked like a bathtub." He smiles. "Um, she'd dance with me, sometimes. To the radio. Make lunch—I mostly remember sandwiches and Mac n' Cheese. I'd sit in that little seat in the cart when she went to the grocery store, and she'd ask me what was on the list and I'd pretend I could read it and make up dumb stuff."</p><p>The silence is longer this time. Sam breathes out, carefully. "What kinda stuff?"</p><p>"I dunno. Just silly things, like 'elephant steaks!' Or 'a unicorn!' Or 'poop n' rhubarb pie!'"</p><p>"Gross." Sam wrinkles his nose.</p><p>Dean grins at that. "I think you're, like, the only kid ever who never found poop and fart jokes funny."</p><p>"'Cause they're <em>not.</em>"</p><p>"Don't worry, Sammy, if anyone wonders why you're so weird I'll just tell them it's 'cause you still poop your pants, and you're kinda sensitive about it an' all."</p><p>"<em>Dean.</em>" Sam looks around for something harmless to throw at him, pouts. "Well, I'll just let 'em all know that dumb Dean Winchester <em>loves</em> unicorns. Wants a big sparkly one with a...a...purple horn and a pink mane!"</p><p>"I dunno, dude," Dean laughs. "Sounds like <em>you're</em> the one that knows all about unicorns."</p><p>Sam decides that his pencil is perfectly fine to throw after all. As a concession, he doesn't aim it at Dean's head.</p><p>Dean doesn't seem too annoyed by Sam's assault, so Sam decides to push his luck. "Did Mom think it was funny? Your lists?"</p><p>Dean's melancholy little smile is back. "Yeah...yeah, I think she did. She'd always laugh, anyways. An' she had the best laugh. I'd make up stuff that just got more and more ridiculous just so I could keep watchin' her laugh." He sighs, shrugs. "Anyways, yeah...that's Mom. That's what I remember."</p><p>It gets quiet after that, and Sam can see Dean's face starting to shutter over as he withdraws. It's rare for Sam to get to see his brother so open and unguarded any more. Over the last few years, Dean's started to change; Sam can tell. Still fun, still charming, still affectionate, at least with Sam (mostly when there's no one else around to catch him being so uncool). But, even though they're not really alike—Dean doesn't brood or glower or rage, he's never <em>burning</em> <em>cold</em>—sometimes now he kinda reminds Sam of Dad. He's been more closed off, like Dad is, his deeper emotions pushed farther away, out of Sam's reach. Doesn't show when things get to him, like he used to. Dean's only cried in front of Sam maybe a handful of times that he can remember, but none of them have been in the last three years.</p><p>Sam, he doesn't know how to do that. He cries, too much; all the time, it feels like. At least that's what Dad would say, <em>pull yourself together, Sam, christ, always whining and bawling like a fuckin' child, do you see me and Dean crying all the time?</em> But Sam, he just gets overwhelmed. It's like he starts to <em>feel too much</em> and it all overflows and snowballs and he just feels worse and worse until he doesn't know what else to do, isn't really able to do anything else but cry. Unless, maybe, to yell, to break something. But the one or two times that happened, the reaction from Dad was enough to make sure he won't do it again. And, he doesn't like when Dad does that to <em>them</em>. So Sam never wants to do that to anyone else: get all angry, let it out all over them, make them feel bad. It gets a little harder <em>not</em> to every year, though, it seems like.</p><p>Sometimes he wonders if he's broken, somehow. Like, he was supposed to be more like Dean and Dad, tougher, stronger, more capable. Instead, he ended up like <em>this</em>.</p><p>Sam can feel the moment with Dean slipping away, so he scrambles to find something to keep it going before it's too late.</p><p>"I, um...I remember my first memory."</p><p>Dean quirks an eyebrow at him, breaks out laughing at him. Not mean, but still, <em>at</em> Sam. "Well, yeah, Sam. That's how memories are suppos'ta work. You <em>remember them</em>."</p><p>"...shut up." Sam mutters, cheeks burning red, looking down at the corner of his notebook as he picks at edges of the paper.</p><p>Dean reaches over, smirking, ruffles his hair. "Aw, c'mon Sammy, don't be like that. What was this memory that you remember?"</p><p>Sam stays resolutely silent, shakes his head, rips little pieces off of the sheet.</p><p>"Look, I mean, it's just that you're always such a smart little f—little bas—little bitch, that it's, like, way funnier when you do say somethin' kinda dumb. I mean, if everyone laughed at <em>me</em> when I said somethin' stupid, they'd never stop laughing."</p><p>"That's true." Sam, with a haughty sniff. "An' you can say 'fucker', y'know."</p><p>"Sammy, what the hell!" Dean laughs, a little stunned by the uncharacteristic crudeness of his little brother. "Dude, don't let Dad catch you talkin' like that."</p><p>Sam shrugs with deliberate indifference, like the threat of the belt doesn't faze him. They both know better. "I dunno why not. <em>He</em> talks like that all the time." He meets Dean's eyes. "All the <em>fucking</em> time."</p><p>Dean blinks at him and then breaks out laughing again. "Such a rebel, aren't ya, Sammy?" Punches Sam in the arm with a wink. "Still a little bitch, though."</p><p>"An' you're still a jerk."</p><p>"Guilty." Dean flicks at one of the little paper scraps Sam's littering the table with. "Will y'tell me your memory? Please? I really wanna hear it."</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>"Yeah, I do."</p><p>"Well, it was your birthday..."</p><p>"Oh, two months ago, when we were in Nebraska? I'm surprised you can remember that far back."</p><p>"<em>Dean</em>."</p><p>"Sorry, sorry! I'll be good, I swear." He holds his hands up in surrender. "Keep going."</p><p>"It was <em>one</em> of your birthdays, I dunno which one. But...you look pretty little in it, so, like, a long time ago. I dunno where we were either. I kinda think maybe it was a squat or somethin'. Looked like no one lived there in a long time, and I dunno if there was any power...but, like, I only remember one little part, so..." He shrugs, abandons the notebook, brings his feet up onto the seat of his chair. Starts picking at a loose thread from the rip that's starting on the knee of his jeans. Peeks up at Dean. "It's, you know, the ritual."</p><p>Dean nods, listening intently.</p><p>"We're in an old kitchen. S'dark outside. Looks like one of those old fifties' houses out in like Kansas or Georgia or somethin', y'know? But, like, all run down and dirty. Lots of crazy colors on the counter and the floor but all faded an' stuff. But, like, I can still <em>see</em> it, right? I mean, like, now, if I think 'bout it. Can see some curtains over the sink, all ripped up. One of those cool old refrigerators like in Bobby's garage, in that light blue, but all rusted. You and Dad are sittin' at a little table in the middle of the room, and I'm in, like, a huge old wooden highchair by the wall, and Dad dipped the brush in the bowl an'—"</p><p>"Sammy..."</p><p>"Hmmm?" Sam looks up, sees the skeptical look Dean's wearing. His hackles go up immediately. "What?? I swear, it happened! That's what I remember!"</p><p>"Yeah, look...I know it happened, Sam. But...that was my <em>sixth</em> birthday. That was the first time we'd ever done the ritual."</p><p>"Really?" Sam's surprised, and pleased. He'd never realized that was the first one.</p><p>"Really. And, dude, <em>I</em> barely remember that much about it." He shakes his head. "You would have been <em>way</em> too young to remember that." Sam shakes his head vehemently. "Sam, you weren't even two yet! There's no way you got that much detail! I don't even think you actually really remember it, you probably just saw a picture and then your brain made-"</p><p>"Who woulda taken a picture of it??? There was no one else there!" Sam's angry now; really pissed.</p><p>Dean's mouth snaps shut. His eyebrows furrow. "Ok, yeah, I'll give you that, but...I dunno, Sammy. You must have overheard Dad talking about it or somethin'..."</p><p>"Sure, ok, yeah. To <em>whom,</em> Dean? We can't talk about it outside the family! An' you think he's gonna talk to <em>me</em> about it??"</p><p>Dean blinks at him. "...<em>Whom,</em> Sam? Really?? Are you eight or eighty?"</p><p>"<em>DEAN.</em>"</p><p>"Ok, sorry! You just—" He shakes his head, sighs. "Look, I ain't saying this to be a jerk. It's just...really unlikely. Maybe you just kinda pieced together little bits from a bunch of different birthdays and remember it as—"</p><p>"<em>NO,</em> Dean!!" Sam slams his hands down on the table and Dean shuts up, startled. "There was one of those goofy moving-eye cat clocks on the wall, but all broken. The candles were those fifty-cent Virgin Mary ones in the glass jars that y'get at the corner store by the Mexican soda. I got all excited an' stuff and yelled out your name a bunch of times and was beating on the tray of the highchair, an' there was—"</p><p>"Ok, ok, I believe you!! I swear! It's ok, Sammy, calm down." Dean gives him a strange look, kind of impressed, kind of fond, kind of disturbed. "Wow. Yeah, m'sorry I doubted you, dude, but, like, it didn't seem possible? But, like, I didn't remember the creepy cat clock at all until you said that, but I definitely remembered you yelling." He smiles. "Dad and I couldn't figure out what got you so riled up. You remember so much about that night, do you know what that was about?"</p><p>Sam shrugs. "Yeah, mostly." He'd figured out years ago that neither Dad nor Dean saw the same thing he did. No glow or light coming from the sigils. It just looked like dark ink to them. Dean did say it would tingle when one of them was completed, though, and then stronger when the whole thing was done. He'd told Dean, once, about it. But not their father. He tried not to bring it up much, just to be careful. "But I don't think you get to know, for bein' such a jerk." He sticks his tongue out at him to soften the blow.</p><p>Dean laughs. "Ok. That's fair, I guess." He blows over the little pile of paper scraps he's assembled. "That's a pretty cool first memory, though. I mean, it does feature <em>me</em>, an;' all." Sam pushes down a smile, rolls his eyes, kicks Dean's shin. "And pretty cool that you can remember that long ago, too. But y'are a freaky little genius. I shouldn't be surprised anymore."  He looks sober suddenly. "You...aren't gonna write about that for class, are you?"</p><p>"What? Dean, no, I'm not an <em>idiot</em>!"</p><p>"I know, I know. Just hadda make sure. What are you gonna write about?"</p><p>They toss back and forth increasingly ridiculous ideas, ranging from some of the more outrageous hunts they've witnessed, to the time that Dad got so drunk he started fighting with the motel owner about yetis (Dad coming down hard on the side of 'hoax') and they ended up getting kicked out in the middle of the night after Dad had cut down the guy’s “Bigfoot Crossing” sign with an axe. In the end, Sam waits until later in the day, and easily fills up a page-and-a-half about the time, last summer, when he and Dean had spent all afternoon exploring tidal pools in Yaquina Head, Oregon, marveling at all the tiny little aquatic worlds they found. He invents an older teenage cousin that tagged along so the teacher won't question why two young kids spent the day alone in a national park.</p><p>He gets an A.</p><p>From then on, Sam keeps his eyes out in thrift stores for cassettes from the bands Dean mentioned; pockets them when he can to listen to later on the beat-up Walkman knock-off Dean stole for him for his sixth birthday. He likes a lot of it, but he's careful about what he keeps; only his favorites. He stashes them in the bottom of his school bag, in the hollowed-out book that Bobby showed him how to make last year, on a rainy day when Sam got bored with watching old Westerns. </p><p>For some reason, he doesn't want Dean to know about them. Doesn't want him to feel like Sam's trying to take something away from him. So he slips them in when he's sitting in the back of the Impala alone, on long trips, and closes his eyes. Lets the albums pour into his ears over the headphones; shuts the rest of the world out. <em>Sgt Pepper's</em>. <em>Pet Sounds</em>. <em>Bookends</em>. He tries to imagine his mom, Mary, singing the songs to him, in a sunny kitchen. </p><p>But he can never really pull together a complete image of her; just bits and pieces, blurred-together impressions: yellow hair, the smiling face from the picture (looking kind of flat, like a mask), a flowered dress he'd seen in a shop window. And he doesn't know what her voice sounded like, so it kind of just ends up being a composite of the voices of some of his favorite teachers, and the mother of a classmate, Jeremy, back in Indiana, who drove him home when she spotted Sam sitting under the overhang of the side entrance, reading while he waited for the rain to stop. So he gives up on trying to picture her, and, instead, just tries to sink into the music, sees if he can feel what she was feeling when <em>she</em> listened to it. Imagines the conversations they might have: which songs would be her favorites, why she would have liked them, where she was the first time she heard them playing.</p><p>When he hears those songs on the radio now, or over the speakers in a restaurant, it makes him feel kind of happy and sad at the same time. They remind him of her. </p><p>Except for <em>America</em>. For some reason, that one makes him think of Dean.</p><p>But Sam keeps his own memory, that first recollection of the ritual, close to his chest after that. He doesn't regret telling Dean, but it makes him feel a little sick to think that his most treasured memory, which is wrapped up in so much of <em>who he is</em>, could have been a lie. Could have been a fantasy, that his <em>own brain</em> made up, and fooled him into thinking was reality. He fears that, even though it wasn't the case this time, maybe other things that he <em>knows</em> are true... just <em>aren't</em>. It's terrifying. If he can't trust his own mind, what can he trust? </p><p>Yet, there's also relief that it <em>was</em> real. And the whole interaction with Dean, hearing his own memories of their mom, how happy he made her, how much they loved each other, just confirms to Sam that he was right. That his big brother is beautiful. </p><p>...even if he is a dick, sometimes. </p><p>So, really, no matter what happened afterwards, Sam's life—what he could remember of it, at least—began with beauty. If nothing else, he'll always be grateful for that.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This is a story I've been playing around with for a while and just started working on a little earlier this year. The original idea was loosely based on The Pillow Book (the movie by Peter Greenaway, not the 10th century Japanese journal, though I ended up using some ideas from that in the end, and the title is taken from it). It wasn't perfect, but there were things about it that stuck with me, in particular the body painting/writing ritual element, along with the themes of life-destroying deals, desire, death, and, well...major daddy issues. So I never intended this to be an adaptation exactly, let alone a strict one, more just "inspired by." The movie is full of beautiful, awful people doing terrible things to each other, to those they love, because they can't communicate or see past what they believe. And, while, that may not be too unfamiliar, the crucial difference is that I don't see the main characters of Supernatural as <em>awful people</em> and the storylines didn't fit them well. So, the major element that survived is the body painting ritual. There are a few other minor influences (that may not even be recognizable at this point), but I definitely wanted to be up front and make sure it's clear that I didn't come up with that particular concept myself. Though I did put a pretty strong SPN spin on it.</p><p>This story doesn't hew exactly to canon either, of course. I did try to keep it as canon-adjacent as I could, though. The main differences in this universe are addressed in later chapters a little more thoroughly, though the one that's apparent here in the first chapter is that the hunting/supernatural world wasn't really hidden from Sam, and he grew up knowing it.</p><p>Lastly, I don't know why I do this to myself, but I'm also working on a timestamp story to this one concurrently (Pretty When You Cry, which is Stanford era, and could be kinda spoilery, so you may want to wait till this story hits that point to read it if you like linear progression). I want to make sure I post to both of them consistently, but that means that updates to this may not be as frequent as I'd like.</p><p>I have a lot of this written, but what I have is chapters scattered throughout the storyline, and I'll have a fair bit of fill-in and polishing to do. I do intend to update this at least once a month, and would love to do so more frequently, but I can't promise that, so I won't.</p><p>Also, the song that makes Sam think of him and Dean is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo2ZsAOlvEM">America</a> by Simon &amp; Garfunkle. It not necessary to listen to it for the story, but it is really lovely. And it makes me think of them, too.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In August of Dean's sixth year, they rent a little duplex on the outskirts of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and John enrolls Dean in school. </p><p>Dad said he picked the city because it's relatively low in paranormal activity and unresolved deaths. Which may be true, but Dean also suspects that Bobby being less than five hours away has something to do with it. Just in case he needs a place to stash him and Sam in an emergency.</p><p>But Dean's not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, because Dean's excited by a lot of things that come along with this unexpected change in fortune. They're living somewhere with a <em>whole bedroom</em> for Dean and Sam to share all to themselves. Dad's got an actual job down at a local auto shop, so they probably won't run out of food too often. And, most of all, Bobby said that at school that Dean'll get to hang out with other kids his age <em>all year</em>.</p><p>It's not like he hasn't hung out or played with other kids before, but...he wouldn't say he's actually ever had any <em>friends</em> his own age. A lot of the time, they're not in one place long enough for him to get too far past the initial wariness of meeting new people. They also tend to live in places that don't have a lot of kids of <em>any</em> age—shady motels or hunters' cabins or empty houses.</p><p>Sometimes the babysitters Dad finds for them will have children of their own at their houses. But they're usually either too old to stoop to playing with a little kid like Dean, or they're just babies, like Sam, who can't do much more than poop in their pants or cry or babble non-stop.</p><p>Not that he's saying that's all <em>Sam</em> can do, of course. But Sam is <em>Dean's</em> little brother, so that just means that he's cooler than other kids by default.</p><p>There's been once or twice that they've met up with other hunters with children around the same age as Dean. It's usually not for very long; a few days, a week or two at most. But he's found that, while they're not instant best friends or anything, he can understand and get along with them much better than civilian kids. </p><p>Still, they're always whisked away too soon. And besides, most of them get annoyed with Sam when Dean has to spend time watching him.</p><p>The house they're living in isn't much, just two small bedrooms and a single bath, and a living room that opens right into the kitchen. It's old and worn, but it's pretty clean. The neighborhood is quiet enough, even if a lot of the yards are choked with weeds and sun-bleached plastic toys. The other half of the place is rented by a nice, if tired-looking, woman with a long, grey-streaked braid, who works down at Hy Vee during the day and The Reegle Bar and Lounge at night. She lives with her teenage son, who smokes unfiltered Camels on the back steps, and always wears the same four black t-shirts with skulls and guys with lots of hair on them. He smells a little funny and won't look anyone in the eye, but Dean recognizes the picture on one of his shirts from their cassette of Motorhead's <em>Overkill</em>, and decides that Ryan might be pretty cool, after all.</p><p>Not to mention, he gave Sam a faded, old foam soccer ball from the shed out back a week after they moved in. And Dean's seen him laughing as he kicks it from his seat on the stoop, not too hard or too far. He'll watch with a smile as Sam toddles on his chubby legs after it and squeals in delight as he tries to throw it back. It usually takes Sam three or four throws to make it all the way. Dean thinks it’s sad that he doesn’t have a little brother of his own to keep him company.</p><p>All in all, it's the closest they've had to a home since theirs burned down two years ago, with their mom in it.</p><p>But Dean's nervous, too, mostly about school. Will the other kids like him? What about the teachers? He knows how to read, kinda, but he's not great at it yet. He still stumbles over words that he should know. And what does he say if people ask where he's from? Or about his mom? What if they can't afford all the things he needs, like paper and pencils and erasers and books and markers and stuff?</p><p>And most of all, what about <em>Sam</em>?</p><p>Sam and Dean have never spent their days apart like that. </p><p>Sure, maybe a day here and there. And Sam likes to play by himself for an hour or so each day, even if Dean's never quite been sure what this play time actually consists of. Mostly it just seems to be Sam walking around, looking at and <em>touching</em> everything, and talking quietly to himself. The one time Dean had tried to join in, following Sam around and touching everything he touched, Sam had turned and stared at him with a shocked, wounded look. Then he'd suddenly burst into tears and ran off to hide under the bed for the next two hours. Dean finally managed to coax him out with a lime freeze-pop. He'd made sure to leave him alone to have his <em>Sam-is-Weird Time</em> after that incident. </p><p>But, outside of those brief interruptions, they've been together pretty much all the time since they'd left Kansas.</p><p>Sam is Dean's little burr; always at Dean's side, tripping over his heels, too clingy and prickly and adoring to shake. Laughing at all of Dean's goofy antics. Peppering Dean with constant questions, until he gets fed up answering them and snaps that <em>it's Shut-Up Time, Sam</em>. Grabbing at Dean's hand, hiding behind his legs, when he gets nervous. Patting Dean's arm gently with grubby little hands when Dean's sad. Curling up to steal Dean's warmth at night; drooling into his armpit.</p><p>What's Sam going to do all day without Dean? Who's going to take care of him while Dad's at work?</p><p>He's asked, but Dad just tells him not to worry about it, that he'll take care of it. But Dean can't help but worry. No one else in the world knows how to handle Sam, and all his peculiarities, like Dean does.</p><p>"Listen, Bobby, I don't need—" Dean hears his father's irritated voice, and pauses, hidden in the hallway around the corner. Sam's taking a nap. He doesn't always, but they spent a lot of time outside today while Sam pulled Dean around the yard, pointing out every colorful bug and stunted flower. "Yes...No, I get it." A frustrated sigh. "Look, I don't know what you're worked up about. I'm already doing everything I said I would. He's enrolled. I found a house. A fucking day job. I'm not shirking this; I know he needs an education, and CPS would catch up with us eventually, anyways. It's not like I need to deal with that shit on top of everything else."</p><p>There's a pause. "...Yes, <em>and</em> the socialization." Dean can almost hear his Dad's eyes rolling. "He tested fine. They said no kindergarten means some catching up to do in a few places, but he's a smart kid. He'll figure it out." Dad huffs, resigned. "Reading. Was never my favorite thing, either. Did great on the visual-spatial, though."</p><p>Dean's just about to creep back down the hallway. Even though he knows Dad's talking about him and school and stuff, it's kinda boring. And he doesn't like hearing Dad and Uncle Bobby argue.</p><p>"Yeah, I got Sam covered, don't worry about it." Dean stops, turns back around. There's another sigh. "There's some church a few blocks away; does some daycare thing that's free for 'low-income' families." Pause. "Well, I'm pretty much <em>no</em>-income until next week; not much better after that. And the girl who runs it practically wet herself over a <em>young widower raising his poor orphaned sons in righteousness.</em> Bitch. They're not orphans; their father is <em>right here</em>." He sounds pissed off, but also kind of amused.</p><p>Dad laughs, then. "Well, you're not exactly young yourself, Singer. And she didn't invite <em>you</em> to a 'small, intimate potluck', now, did she?" More laughter. "Oh, hell no. I mean, if I wasn't living here, maybe. But I gotta drop Sam off there every day; I'm not getting tangled up in that." Dean panics a little. <em>Every day??</em> </p><p>"<em>No,</em> Bobby. Not weekends. You know what I meant." Dean takes a silent, relieved breath.</p><p>"I don't know what kind of damn church, Bobby! The kind that loves Jesus and acoustic guitars and Noah's Ark murals?" A longer pause. "Yeah, I know, but they're not gonna grill a two-year old about demons and witches, c'mon. He'll be fine, Bobby, quit your mother-henning. They don't seem like the 'god-hates-you' types, either. And it's not like that kid listens to anyone but Dean, anyways."</p><p>Dean puzzles over why Dad sounds so unhappy about that, and misses the next few things he says. When he picks back up, his dad sounds <em>really</em> annoyed.</p><p>"No...<em>No</em>." He's got that <em>'this-is-my-final-word'</em> tone of voice. Dean creeps back a step, reflexively. "Look, Singer, I never said it would be the whole damn thing. If something comes up that I need to take care of, then that's what I'm going to do...Yes, <em>of course</em> he'll pick back up wherever we go; I'm not going to let my son grow up ignorant." The pause this time is tense. "Christmas. Longer if I can, but...that's all I'll commit to now. Yeah." An angry exhale, the words growled. "Yeah, you too."</p><p>The phone is hung up much harder than it probably needs to be. Dean creeps back down the hallway as quietly as he can, even as he hears his dad making noise in the kitchen cabinets. He carefully opens the door and slides in, closing it slowly and gently so it doesn't make the loud <em>click</em> that it usually does.</p><p>Sam's lying in bed, covers kicked off of him, but curled into a tight little ball like he's cold. His hair tangles up in every direction. His mouth hangs open slightly, the pillowcase damp beneath it.</p><p>Dean smiles and crawls into the bed behind Sammy. He nestles up behind him and wraps his arms around him, like the world's boniest, most slobbery teddy bear. He's not sure what to think. At least he knows where Sam will be while he's at school now. But some things about what his dad says don't leave him feeling reassured. </p><p>Though, Dad didn't seem worried. And, no matter how well Uncle Bobby means, no one knows what he and Sam need like their father does.</p><p> </p><p>.......</p><p> </p><p>On the first day of school, Dean walks into the classroom and looks around, uncomfortable. He's not exactly sure what he's supposed to do. When a lanky girl with rows of braids squeezes past him with a <em>'scuse me</em>, Dean follows her over to the rows of desks, and picks one near the windows about halfway back. He watches the seats fill up over the next ten minutes, keeping his face as impassive as he can.</p><p>"Good morning, class!" A smiling woman in a green corduroy dress stands up at the front of the room. "My name is Miss Grabowski, but I'd like you all to call me Miss G, please."</p><p>"Good morning, Miss G." About half the class—not including Dean—echoes back to her. They're nowhere near in unison.</p><p>Miss G beams at them like they've just done something amazing. Dean is skeptical. "Welcome to first grade! Now, we're going to spend this first day talking about what we're going to be doing over the next year, and getting to know everyone a little better."</p><p>She has everyone go around the room and stand up and introduce themselves. Just their names, thankfully. Most of them must be from here, anyways. She then spends some time talking about classes and subjects and schedules and stuff.</p><p>She finishes telling them that they'll be learning about the different kinds of animals over the next month in science class. Then she says they're going to do <em>another little get-to-know-you exercise</em>. </p><p>
  <em>Great.</em>
</p><p>"We already know each other's names, so now I think we'll get to know about each other's families! In particular, our pets!" She seems to be waiting for some kind of excited reaction. She plows on when they all just look at her. "We'll go around the room, and each of us will state if we have a pet, and, if so, what their names are and what kind of animal they are. And then, we'll try and figure out which class that animal belongs to, ok?" She smiles, real big. "I'll start off. I have a dog named Archie. He's a norwich terrier. Does anyone know what class a dog belongs to?" Everyone just kind of glances at each other while she waits them out. "No? Ok, well, dogs are mammals. That's also the same class that humans belong to, did you know that?"</p><p>Dean snickers to himself when he sees the look one of the kids in front of him gives her when she says that. <em>Humans and dogs, what?</em> Clearly, he thinks she's bonkers and is suddenly wondering if she's smart enough to be teaching them.</p><p>They go around the room then. While not everyone has a pet, it seems like most kids do. There's lots of dogs and cats, of course. More than a few birds and hamsters. One boy has gerbils, another an iguana. One girl even has a horse.</p><p>When Dean's turn comes, he replies without thinking, "Well, I have a little brother. His name is Sammy." He pauses, tacks on. "He's a mammal, I guess."</p><p>Miss G laughs, a kind of tinkling, grating noise. Dean feels his hackles rise. He grits his jaw, clenches his fists. <em>What makes this bitch think she can laugh at him?</em> Especially when he's talking about his brother?</p><p>Then he realizes she's giving him that kind of dopey look that women sometimes give him right before he gets a free cookie at the grocery store, or an extra helping of chicken and rice at the soup kitchen, or a free piece of pie at the diner. </p><p>Dean's not always sure, sometimes, why he gets certain reactions from people for the things he says and does. But he learns fast, at least. Learns to repeat the things that get him what he wants or needs; learns to make them natural, a habit, part of his personality. He learns all the different kinds of smiles to bestow, and when to give them. He learns the polite and sweet  <em> thank you, m'am</em> and <em>you're welcome</em> and <em>please</em> given from under his eyelashes. He learns to whisper <em>Daddy, she's so pretty,</em> just loud enough for the waitress to hear when she leaves their table.</p><p>So he gives her the particular confident smile that he knows makes grown-ups—particularly moms and librarians—melt and coo.</p><p>She smiles back, charmed. "I could just tell you'd be a comedian. Very clever joke, Dean. Now, <em>do</em> you actually have a pet at home?"</p><p>"No, Miss G. We don't gotta pet." He doesn't want to mention that they move too much to have a pet. "We did have a snake when I was little." They didn't. "He was almost bigger than me. But we had to get rid of him when my brother came home. Dad said they traded him in for Sam at the pet shop." Dad definitely never said that.</p><p>She laughs again, as do a few other kids in class, before she moves on to the next kid. Dean pushes down the grin that wants to escape. Maybe this whole school thing will be easier than he thought. </p><p>At lunch that day, he collects his tray with its grilled cheese sandwich, apple slices, mixed vegetables, brownie, and carton of milk. At first he thinks it's a mistake and hurries away from the line before they realize how much food they gave him <em>just for lunch.</em> Then he realizes the other kids with trays all have the same thing. He stops and looks around, a little overwhelmed. There are so many kids here. Miss G said they share lunchtime with the second graders and half of third grade, but still. There must be hundreds of them, gathered in clumps around low tables on orange plastic chairs. He's not sure where he should sit.</p><p>"Dean!" he hears, off to his right, and his head whips around. He sees a boy with dark, spiky hair from his class, sitting with four other kids. <em>Austin</em>, Dean's pretty sure that's what his name was. He was one of the kids who laughed at Dean's 'jokes'. Now he's waving him over enthusiastically. "Come sit at our table!"</p><p>Dean wants to run over there in his relief, but he forces himself to scan the cafeteria one more time. Casually, like he's looking for better options. When he's done, he turns and walks over towards Austin and his friends. He wears a relaxed, satisfied smile that says Dean's the one that invited all of <em>them</em> to sit here.</p><p>"Hey, Austin." He says as he slides down into the last open seat at the table. Nods to the other kids, who are sneaking peeks at him, or even staring at him openly. "Hi, guys."</p><p>Austin grins at him, and Dean notices he's got a missing tooth right up in the front of his mouth. Dean resists the urge to poke his tongue in the gap on the left side of his own mouth. It would suck to start school with a smile like that, all empty right in front. </p><p>"Hey." He's got a shiny metal lunchbox. Thundercats.</p><p>'Cool lunchbox." Dean says, and he actually kind of means it. When they're lucky enough to get a motel with a working color TV, Dean always sits down with Sam for Saturday morning cartoons. Thundercats isn't his favorite, but it's good. He's often thought of himself as Lion-O, a brave warrior and hero, destined to be a leader. Sammy, of course, is Tygra, Lion-O's loyal, smart—and just a little less heroic—second-in-command.</p><p>Not that he'd ever tell anyone any of that, of course.</p><p>Austin lights up at the compliment. "Thanks! Mom let me pick it out last week at K-Mart. Thundercats is my favorite show ever! Lion-O is just so rad!"</p><p>Dean nods sagely and takes a bite of his sandwich. The cheese is nice and melty, not at all cold and uncooked in the middle.</p><p>A skinny boy with glasses and curly brown hair sighs, watching Dean take a bite of grilled cheese with longing. "You're so lucky. You and Keith both." He glances over at a short, pug-nosed kid with a blond buzz cut. He's obliviously chowing down on his brownie already, only a few bites taken out of his sandwich so far. "You get to have <em>hot lunch.</em>"</p><p>Dean looks down at the abomination sitting on top of the kid's wrinkled brown bag. It looks like tuna—  <em>dry</em> tuna—with three huge pieces of limp, browning lettuce and a thick, pale, watery slice of tomato shoved under the thin slice of whole wheat bread. Sliced sticks of a nearly colorless vegetable sit untouched in a plastic container. He can't help but feel that the kid's right about Dean's much superior luck.</p><p>"What're those?" Dean asks, mouth full, nose wrinkled, pointing at the light green things in front of him.</p><p>"Zucchini sticks." The boy looks down at the container, sadly. "<em>Raw</em> zucchini sticks."</p><p>"Gross." Dean's not really sure what zucchini is, but it definitely looks like something he'd be slipping on Sam's plate when no one was watching. Flavorless and mealy. The other boy seems to agree with him completely.</p><p>The girl sitting across from them, with the sandy ponytail, looks scandalized at this exchange. "Jimmy, don't listen to <em>Dean!</em> Thas' dumb, zucchini's not gross!" She snips. "My mom says it's really good for you. Full of, um, fiber. And vit-a-mins."</p><p>"Yeah, but your mom is weird, Lisa. She eats, like, <em>grapefruit,</em> an' <em>cottage cheese,</em> an', an'...<em>cabbage</em>." Austin points out helpfully.</p><p>"...Not all at the same time." Lisa says sullenly.</p><p>Dean studies her lunch, packed neatly in a pink plastic Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox. "...Is that...'r you eatin' <em>salad?</em>"</p><p>Lisa looks up at him challengingly, her pink fork gripped tightly in her hand. "What's wrong with salad??"</p><p>"Nuthin' I guess." Dean shrugs. "I just didn't know normal kids ate <em>salads</em>."</p><p>Keith takes that moment to let out a loud, resounding burp, and everyone turns to look at him. He's finished everything but his veggies. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He looks around at them with a content smile, like he hasn't heard a word they just said.</p><p>Jimmy and Austin break out laughing like it's the funniest thing they've ever seen. Dean grins back at Keith. The girl with the long, shiny black hair, sitting on the other side of Lisa, ducks behind her bangs and giggles into her hand.</p><p>"<em>Patricia!</em>" Lisa hisses. "'S not funny!!"</p><p>Patricia tries to school her face, but catches Dean's gaze when she peeps up. He rolls his eyes dramatically and she dissolves into giggles again. Lisa looks at them all like she's <em>so</em> disappointed. She shakes her head and looks down, stabbing her fork into her pile of lettuce combatively. </p><p>Dean pops the last bite of his grilled cheese into his mouth, picks up his fork and pokes at his vegetables half-heartedly. They're swimming in butter, so they probably won't be <em>too</em> bad, but...</p><p>"Hey, Jimmy, you want these? I don' really like vegetables. Too many <em>vit-a-mins</em>." Jimmy's whole face brightens, and Dean slides the little bowl in front of him.</p><p>"Yeah," Keith chimes in, plopping his bowl next to Dean's. "Y'can have mine, too. Veggies suck."</p><p>Dean sees Lisa giving them all dirty looks out of the corner of his eye as Jimmy tucks in, and smiles to himself.</p><p>"Did y'really have a snake?"</p><p>It takes Dean a moment to realize Austin is talking to him, eyes bright and curious. Dean shoves the apple slices he's holding into his mouth to give himself a few extra seconds.</p><p>"Yeah, dude." Dean's still chewing as he speaks. He doesn't miss Lisa's shudder. "He was pretty cool."</p><p>"What kinda snake?" Keith asks with interest. "Like...a corn snake?"</p><p>"Nah, he was a python." Dean shoves in the rest of his apples, just to make Lisa extra happy. "Hi'sh name w'sh Vader."</p><p>"Awesome..." Austin breathes out, awe written all over his face. "Y'r so lucky. My dad's afraid of snakes, he'd never let me have one."</p><p>"My dad's not afraid of anything." Dean shrugs, no offense meant. It's just the truth. "Anyways, I dunno how lucky, 'cause I <em>had</em> a snake. <em>Now</em> all I got is a dumb, smelly little brother."</p><p>The boys crack up, and Dean grins, chomping into his brownie as the conversation turns to how comparatively annoying and stupid <em>their</em> various siblings are. He pushes away the twinge of guilt he feels at roasting Sam in front of his friends. But, it's not like they know Sam, or care. And it's not like Sam himself will ever know. Anyways, it's a big brother's job to give his younger siblings a hard time, and keep them in their place. At least, that's what Dad's buddy Caleb said, and it sounds about right to Dean.</p><p> </p><p>.......</p><p> </p><p>By the end of the first month, Dean's figured a few things out. First one is that getting people to like him is <em>easy</em>. There's almost a formula to it. Make them laugh, and make them feel like they're in on the joke, too. Find out what you both like, and get them to talk about it while you nod like you already knew all of it. Don't get <em>too</em> excited over anything ( <em>be cool</em>). Smile at the girls. Get the boys to smile at you. Don't let anyone think they can put you in your place. And don't let yourself feel bad about being a jerk sometimes, if that's what you gotta do.</p><p>So, it's easy for Dean to charm his classmates. Donna, one of the lunch ladies, has taken to calling his circle of friends his 'groupies'. However, he quickly finds out that the formula doesn't work quite the same on teachers.</p><p>In fact, it almost seems like it works the opposite.</p><p>Miss G has fallen from being captivated by Dean's charm to being snippy and fed up with him half the time. She uses a lot of phrases like <em>not applying yourself</em> and <em>not living up to your potential</em> and <em>distracting the rest of the class.</em> Dean knows she's just pissed that he knows homework is bullshit, and that the other students think his jokes are funnier and more interesting than her boring classes.</p><p>After he'd missed a bunch of assignments over two weeks, she'd pulled him aside after class let out for lunch. He tried to tell her that he had to take care of Sam the night before and didn't have the time for homework. She'd <em>tcched</em> at him and told him that watching his brother was his parents' job, not his. His job was <em>to get a quality education and better his situation</em>. Every time he'd tried to get a word in edgewise to explain, she'd just lectured right over him about how Sam was the responsibility of his mother and father, and not an excuse for his laziness, until he'd lost his patience.</p><p>"I don't <em>have</em> a mother." Dean snaps. "She's dead."</p><p>Miss G shuts up immediately, and her face goes pale and stricken. "I'm sorry, Dean." She says after a moment, her voice quiet and sincere. "I'd forgotten. I know that must be very hard on you."</p><p>Dean shrugs stiffly, glaring at the floor as he scuffs his foot. He doesn't need her looking at him like that.</p><p>She sighs. "Look, Dean." She pauses, clearly thinking things through. "...I know it can be difficult living in a single-parent household, especially after such a loss, but it's my responsibility to make sure I'm teaching you everything you need to know, to the best of my ability. That includes how to focus on your future, and how to recognize what's really important." His eyes narrow. Is she trying to say that Sam <em>isn't important?</em> "Now, you're a smart boy, and I want to see you do well. There are resources that can help you; tutoring, or after-school programs. If you like, I can talk to your father, and discuss what the options are and how he can plan his parenting time to better help you succeed—"</p><p>"<em>No.</em>" He cuts in quickly. He breathes in, shores his shoulders up, and looks her straight in the eye with as earnest an expression as he can muster. "Miss G, I'm really sorry. It's...y'know that I'm new here; everyone else was in the same kindergarten n' all. An' they've all been really nice! Honest! I jus'..." he shrugs again, this time bashfully. Looks down. "Dunno. Keepin' up is hard n' stuff. Like, I didn't know how m'portant homework was, but I'll make sure to work real hard to get it in on time, now that I know."</p><p>Miss G wavers for a moment, then sighs. "Ok, Dean. I'll give you a chance to get your work in order before we look at other options. We'll see how you do over the next few weeks. If you improve." She puts on her stern face. "But you have to promise me you'll try hard, ok?"</p><p>"Ok, Miss G. I promise." He shuffles a little like he's uncertain. "C'n I go to lunch now?"</p><p>"Yes, Dean. Scoot along now." She turns back to the papers on her desk.</p><p>Dean does turn his homework in after that. It's not always perfect, or even always very good, but he manages to scrape by. Does ok on tests, too. He still has trouble staying focused in class. There's too much going on around him all the time. The noises of other kids shifting in their seats, or the scratching of their pencils. The HVAC going on and off. The ticking of the clock, the shadow of someone passing by in the hallway. The noise Gabby makes chewing on her erasers, the way Nick swings his leg back and forth under his desk. There's too much to be aware of. Too many things demanding his attention. He doesn't always manage to hear what Miss G says, and he can tell she knows by the tightness around her mouth when she looks at him. But he does manage to keep his in-class comments and jokes to a minimum, at least.</p><p>So, despite having a cool group of friends to hang out with, by November Dean is looking forward to getting home by the end of the day. Sam's daycare is on the way from Dean's bus stop, so he always stops there and picks up Sam. Sam always drops whatever activity he's in the middle of to run over to Dean as soon as he walks in the door. Even if it's all the kids singing some weirdly cheerful song as they sit in a circle. Monica, the daycare lady, gave up on trying to make Sam wait until the song was done after the first three or four times, when it became clear he wasn't going to listen to her. He throws his arms around Dean's knees and won't let go until Dean basically pries him off. And maybe it shouldn't, but it makes Dean feel awesome to see how much Sam needs and misses him.  </p><p>Then they walk the two blocks home together, Sam's little hand clutching Dean's. His big eyes stare up at him while Dean tells him about whatever crap happened with his friends at school that day. He knows Sam can't follow along with all the dumb details and drama Dean throws in, but it seems like Sam enjoys listening to him talk, anyways. When they get home, Dean will sit down on the couch, with his books on the coffee table and the TV on reruns of whatever syndicated sitcoms are playing, and take a stab at his homework. Sam loves to sit next to him and pretend like he's following along. While, some days, Dean gets fed up and pushes him off, most of the time he thinks it ridiculous—and kinda adorable—how serious Sam looks about it. About 'helping' Dean. And he finds it does help him understand what he's doing a little better if he talks out loud like he's explaining it to Sam.</p><p>Sam especially loves when Dean gets to his reading homework, his chubby finger following behind Dean's on the page as Dean sounds out words.</p><p>Over Thanksgiving, Dean gets a whole week off. It's pretty awesome not to have to get up extra early for the bus, and sit in a hard seat all day, and do homework and stuff in the afternoon. Dad lets Sam stay home from daycare with Dean, so they have the whole week to themselves. Only problem is it's cold and sleeting almost non-stop, so they can't really go outside and play. That doesn't derail them much; they're used to having to stay inside motel rooms for days at a time when they're in particularly bad areas. Not to mention being stuck in the car for hundreds of miles at a stretch. </p><p>They watch cartoons and play with Legos, and Dean reads picture books to Sam. Sam touches all the door handles or the upholstery or kitchen tiles once a day, while Dean practices sit ups and push ups and shadow boxing in the living room, just like his dad does. One morning, they jump up and down on Dad's bed for a solid half hour, laughing and squealing, until Sam goes flying off the side when Dean lands just a little too close to him. There's a way-too-loud thunk, followed by silence. Dean freaks out a little, maybe. Scrambles over to pull the tangle of blankets out of the foot-wide gap between the bed and the wall, searching frantically for his little brother underneath them. He sees a mess of dark curls, reaches down, wrangles Sam up over the edge with his hands under his armpits.</p><p>He deposits a rumpled Sam on the bed next to him, starts patting him down, looking at his head, his arms, for injuries. "Crap, Sammy, I'm sorry!" Makes sure the little fingers aren't broken. "You ok? You hurtin' anywhere??"</p><p>Sam looks up at him seriously, pulls his pants leg up over his dimpled knee. There's a shallow-but-wide mess of scratches that runs all the way from the middle of his shin over his knee. It looks like the metal bed frame must have gotten him on the way down. It's not bleeding too much, most of it looks more like road rash than anything, but Dean hisses in sympathy, 'cause that <em>burns</em>. He gently moves Sam's leg to the side and sees where his outer thigh must have slammed against the wall. It's already starting to bruise in spectacular colors. </p><p>Dean flinches. "Oh, man, Sammy...got you good there."</p><p>Sam looks down, smacks his hand into the bruise, makes a face, yells "OUCH!" so loudly Dean jumps.</p><p>And then Sam dissolves into hysterical giggles, till he can't even sit up anymore and falls onto his back, pointing at Dean and saying <em>ouch ouch ouch</em> in between the bouts of giggling.</p><p>Dean stares at him, gape-mouthed, for a minute, before shaking his head. "I think maybe you <em>did</em> hit your head, weirdo."</p><p>Sam sits up, crawls over to Dean, pokes him with his pointer finger right in the middle of the forehead. "Ouch head! Ow ow ow..." He chortles with glee.</p><p>"You are <em>so</em> weird." Dean tugs Sam over, helps him down off the bed. "Wonder if I was this weird when I was yr'age?"</p><p>Dean pulls on his hand. Sam chirps out "No!"</p><p>"C'mon Sam, we gotta clean that scrape up. 'S bleeding."</p><p>"<em>No</em>, De." Sam looks at him like he's stupid, then grins slyly. "...De weird <em>now</em>."</p><p>Then he starts giggling again, and runs ahead of Dean into the bathroom. </p><p>Dean blinks. From what they've said, none of his school friends' younger siblings are <em>this</em> bizarre. Dean wonders how he got so lucky. </p><p>When he goes into the bathroom, Sam's dragged the plastic first aid kit half out of the cabinet under the sink onto the floor. He's standing patiently next to the toilet waiting for Dean to help him up to sit on the lid.</p><p>Dean starts working on the cut, dabbing it with alcohol wipes, while Sam looks on with curiosity. It looks like a whole layer of skin scraped right off. Sam's face scrunches up, but he only whimpers once, when Dean has to scrub some fibers out of a deeper gouge. </p><p>"...Sorry, dude." He murmurs. Sam pats his face reassuringly with his palm.</p><p>After they're done, Dean looks at the three extra-large bandaids on Sam's leg and sighs. "Dad's gonna be so pissed at me." He looks down at the little pile of trash from the kit on the floor in front of him and grimaces.</p><p>He feels Sam tap the top of his head, looks up. Sam places one finger in front of his closed mouth, then reaches over and does the same to Dean. He looks very serious.</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>Sammy nods.</p><p>"Ok. We don't have to tell Dad this time, I guess. If y'don't want to."</p><p>He helps Sam down, crumples up the trash to throw it away. Thinks better of it and flushes it down the toilet. It's not like he and Sam don't have all kinds of secrets already. Just, most of them aren't from their dad.</p><p>Later on, they're playing much more sedately and safely in their room. On the floor. Dad's home from the garage, and had stretched out in the recliner for <em>just a few minutes</em> about an hour ago.</p><p>"No more school?"</p><p>Sam sounds so hopeful that Dean almost doesn't want to answer.</p><p>"No, Sammy, I go back next week."</p><p>Sam frowns. "Lil' Lam' Tails?"</p><p>
  <em>What a stupid name.</em> "Yeah, Sammy. Y'gotta go back to daycare."</p><p>"No." And Sam's tone of finality sounds so much like Dad's, Dean glances up sharply. "I go t' school."</p><p>Dean sighs. "You're too young for school, Sam."</p><p>"<em>Know</em> that. S'not <em>fair</em>. Wanna go now, wi'you."</p><p>"You can go in a few years, 'k? We'll walk to school together n' everything."</p><p>"How <em>many</em> few?"</p><p>Dean hesitates. Four years will probably be hard for Sam to comprehend. They've only stayed somewhere more than four months once in the past two years.</p><p>"When you're six, like me." Even though Dean'll be seven in a few months. But he doesn't want to confuse Sam.</p><p>"You be six then, too, De?"</p><p>Dean laughs. "No, Sammy, I'll be ten when you're six."</p><p>Sam pouts. Then his forehead scrunches up, and Dean knows he's thinking hard about something. He'd never tell anyone this, but Dean thinks it's really cute when he does that.</p><p>"'M two now."</p><p>"I know, Sammy."</p><p>Sam looks down at his hands, still thinking away. Looks back up at Dean. "Six?"</p><p>"Yeah, Sammy, you'll start when you're six."</p><p>Sam holds up his tiny little fists. He starts unfolding his fingers, one by one, counting out loud. Dean feels a surge of pride. <em>He's</em> taught Sam that, when Sam's 'helping' him with his math homework—mostly by pointing at random things on his paper or shouting out a number when Dean gets confused or stuck on something.</p><p>"Ten!" Sam'll shout gleefully and point to the word <em>'the'</em> or a picture of a pile of bananas.</p><p>Even Dad thinks it's funny, smiles at them with affection when he's home to see it. But Dean corrected Sam patiently every time they did math. Showed him how to count on his fingers. How to count with forks, with toothpicks. </p><p>Dad insists Sam doesn't even really understand the numbers at all yet, he's just repeating what Dean told him the fingers are called. But Dean knows better. Sam likes to count the numbers of things they have in their house, looks at Dean for approval. <em>Eight Legos?</em> and Dean will nod <em>good job, Sammy, you're so smart</em>. <em>Three bull'ts?</em> and Dean takes them away, <em>that's real good, but you don't touch those, right?</em> </p><p>He loves the way Sam beams at him, so happy, when Dean praises him. Makes him feel like he's doing something right.</p><p>"...Fife...<em>six</em>."</p><p>Sam's holding up his chubby little hands in front of him for Dean to see, six fingers spread out.</p><p>"Yep! Good job, that's six. Like me."</p><p>"'M two <em>now</em>." Sam repeats, and Dean snickers under his breath. Sam's definitely cuter than any stupid pets the kids in his class have.</p><p>"...One...<em>two</em>." Sam folds down the pointer finger of his left hand and the thumb on his right hand.</p><p>He and Dean both stare at his right hand. Dean sees Sam counting the remaining fingers under his breath, each finger twitching in turn.</p><p>"FOUR!" Sam looks at him with big eyes.</p><p>"Yeah, Sammy!" He finds he’s almost as excited as Sam is. His little brother can subtract, and he's not even three yet. And Dean's the one that taught him! Let's see Miss G say he's lazy <em>now</em>. "Wow, you figured it out! That's awesome!"</p><p>But he misread the expression on Sam's face. It's not excitement over figuring it out. It's shock, and betrayal, over the eternity without Dean that lies ahead of him.</p><p>Sam's tiny little face crumples, and he starts bawling loudly.</p><p>"<em>Tooooo looooong,</em> De! Wanna go wit' you <em>now</em>. You <em>always</em> gone! Leave me <em>all the time</em>!"</p><p>After a moment of regret, and maybe a little irritation, Dean rushes over to calm Sam down, reassure him, get him to shut up, to <em>just stop</em>.</p><p>"Shhhh, Sammy, it's ok." But Sam just keeps howling. Dean's face twists, and he shakes Sam. Just a little, though, to get his attention. "Sam, quiet! Dad's gonna wake up and he's gonna be <em>mad.</em>"</p><p>But he's not fast enough to prevent it.</p><p>John opens the door, looking <em>very</em> unhappy. He looks at Sam crying, then at Dean, with his panicked expression, trying to pat Sam quiet. He takes a deep, restrained breath. </p><p>"What did you do now, Dean?"</p><p>"Nothing! I swear, Dad! You know how Sammy is, he always cries; he's probably jus' hungry or somethin'." He looks at Sam's tear-streaked face, his broken-hearted, hiccuping howls, and feels a surge of guilt he knows he shouldn't. But he can't stop it. "...I jus'...I told him he can't come t'school with me. He wouldn't stop askin'." Dean mumbles, looking at his lap.</p><p>"Not this shit again." John strides over and Dean flinches, but it's Sam he picks up. He sits him on the edge of the bed and crouches in front of him, holding him in place. Big, rough hands squeezing tiny bird shoulders. "Sam, look at me." He's firm, but doesn't sound <em>really</em> angry yet, just frustrated. Sam shakes his head, whimpering, eyes squeezed shut and leaking. Dean's getting frustrated, too, and nervous. Why can't Sam ever just do what Dad says?</p><p>"Sam." Dad's voice is all warning now. Sam knows that tone, gives in. Cracks open one eye, then the other. Peers at their dad. He's still letting out little quiet sobs, but not wailing like he was before. Snot drips down from his nose onto his chin. <em>Gross.</em> "We've talked about this before, haven't we? Several times. I understood how upset you were the first time, even the second. It's a big change. But I shouldn't have to keep telling you not to do something <em>over and over</em> again"</p><p>Sam's eyes drop and he nods his head, even as his breath stutters and the tears keep falling.</p><p>"I'm not gonna explain it again, 'cause I know you understand. You may be disobedient and stubborn, but you're not stupid." He leans down to look in Sam's eyes, shakes him. "Are you?"</p><p>Sam sniffs. "No, Daddy." Dean can barely hear his voice.</p><p>"Dean can't be with you all day. Watching out for you is part of his job, but it's not his <em>only</em> job. He's got a lot of other things to do that aren't all about you. It would be very selfish of you not to let him do those things, right?" Sam nods again, full of shame. "So, if you start crying over school again, you <em>will</em> be punished. We're done with this. Do you understand?" Sam's lip trembles, but he stays quiet, except for his hitching breaths. "Sam? Answer me."</p><p>"...yes, Daddy." He peeks up at John. "No more cryin' 'bout school."</p><p>Dad releases his grip, rubs Sam's arm, smiles a little. "There we go. See, you can be good when you want to." He glances over at Dean, winks. "Like Dean. Dean listens, and doesn't cry over silly things, and that's why he can go to school. If you want to go to school, too, you'll have to learn how to do that. They don't let bad boys go to school." Sam's head comes up quickly, looking at John with big, startled eyes. John looks back over to Dean. "Isn't that right, Dean?"</p><p>Dean feels something uncomfortable twist in his stomach. It's not true. Aaron is a major jerk, a bully, not good at all. And they don't kick <em>him</em> out. Miss G even <em>likes</em> him, because he'll rat on anybody and everybody to get out of trouble himself. There are definitely bad boys, and girls, too, in Dean's class.</p><p>And Sam's <em>not</em> bad, anyways. He's annoying sometimes, and weird, but he's nice to all the other kids at the playground and daycare. He pets animals gently, and never pulls their tails. He's sweet and cuddly with Dean when he's not being a crazy brat. And he does try to make Dad happy, even if he doesn't always know how. </p><p>He's just a little kid, and little kids cry sometimes.</p><p>"Yeah, Sammy." Sam's looking at Dean, worried and scared. Dean can barely look back at him. "Dad's right. Only good boys get to go to school."</p><p>"I be good! <em>Pr'mise!</em>" Sam, all earnestness and conviction, puts his hand over his heart, a gesture Dean knows he picked up from some daytime soap opera a babysitter of theirs used to watch.</p><p>Dad chuckles. "I know you'll try, kiddo."</p><p>"I c'n <em>do</em> it." Sam states with that stubborn tenacity that Dean both loves and curses. "Can be good!"</p><p>"Ok, Sammy." Dad sighs, but with a smile. Ruffles Sam's hair, which Dean knows Sam <em>hates</em>. He heads to the door, looking back at them. "You boys play quietly, now, ok?"</p><p>"Ok, Dad." Dean says, as Sam nods solemnly.</p><p>It takes a while for Dean to coax Sam to help him put together a Lego castle—well, a tower, they don't have enough for a whole castle. Sam won't even talk to him the whole time. Dean notices how he rubs his palms over his eyes when he thinks Dean's not looking, like that will hide the occasional tear or two that leaks out. So Dean makes sure to turn around to dig in the little bin for a particular color or size brick more often than he needs to.</p><p>Sam climbs up in Dean's lap while he's watching old <em>Mork and Mindy</em> reruns later that day, though, and lays his head against Dean's chest before he sticks his thumb in his mouth. Dean looks around for Dad, but he must have left for the bar already. Dad made Sam quit sucking his thumb last spring, but sometimes he forgets he's not supposed to when he's sad or anxious. Dean snakes his arms around Sam and pulls him a little closer. He gives a little kiss to the top of Sam's head, in the middle of his curls.</p><p>"Sorry, Sammy." He whispers. </p><p>He's not entirely sure what for. But he knows Sam was hurt today, and Dean didn't do anything to stop it. </p><p>And that means Dean failed. And if Dean's gonna be a hero, he's not allowed to do that.</p><p> </p><p>......</p><p> </p><p>Christmas comes and goes without much fanfare. At least not at home. There's all kinds of stuff going on at school—decorations, frosted sugar cookies in the cafeteria. It's not as good as the pumpkin pie they got the week before Thanksgiving, but Dean's not complaining. There's also a Secret Santa gift exchange with his classmates.</p><p>That last one bothers him. There's a printout on green paper he's supposed to take home to Dad, with a list of suggestions and rules. The one that catches Dean's eye is the ten-dollar limit on gifts. <em>Ten whole dollars.</em> That's a lot of money.</p><p>But if he shows up with nothing, Lauren's gonna be upset. And everyone likes her. He'll look like a real jerk, and can't brush it off like he forgot. Maybe he can snatch something at the Hy Vee or the general store...but if he gets caught, everyone will know. He's seen how it works here. People still call Tommy W 'Pew Pee' months later, and only one other student goes to the same church as him.</p><p>"De." Sam crawls up next to Dean as he sits on the couch, looks at the paper Dean's staring down. Pats Dean's leg. "What?"</p><p>"Hmmm?" He looks over at Sam absently. Sees his concerned face. Dean doesn't usually brood this long over homework. "'Nuthin, Sammy. Don' worry about it."</p><p>But Sam doesn't always listen to Dean, either. "<em>What</em>, De?"</p><p>Dean sighs, drops the paper in his lap. "Just this chris'mas gift thing I gotta do for school. I'm suppos'ta give this to Dad so he can help. But it's 'spensive. He won't do it. He'll be annoyed an' say it's a waste."</p><p>Sam looks down at the paper, back up to Dean. "I help, De."</p><p>Dean smiles half-heartedly down at Sam. "Nah, Sammy. Thanks, but y'can't help with this. I'll jus' deal with it." He crumples the paper up, tries to make a basket in the kitchen trash, misses. He'll pick it up later.</p><p>Sam frowns, but just snuggles up to Dean's side. "Scooby?"</p><p>"Scooby's not on r'now, Sammy. <em>Knight Rider</em> is, though." Dean picks up the clicker. It's a Friday, so he's not too worried about getting Sam to bed early.</p><p>Sam's up earlier than both Dean and Dad the next morning, as usual, already sitting on the couch wrapped up in a blanket. Dean stumbles in, bleary, and heads to the kitchen to get some juice and cereal for him and his brother. He hears the cracking of joints that means his Dad's joined him in the kitchen, stretching before he makes his coffee.</p><p>"What's this?"</p><p>Dean turns around to see his father picking up a half-uncrumpled sheet of green paper off the edge of the kitchen table, and freezes. <em>Dammit, Sam!</em>
</p><p>"Uhhhh..."</p><p>He shoots a betrayed look at Sam, but he's not even paying attention to them. The light of the brightly colored cartoon figures reflects off his eyes as he sits, engrossed.</p><p>"Hmm." His dad is scanning the sheet, no real expression on his face that Dean can make out. Dean's stomach drops. <em>Why's Sam gotta be like this?</em></p><p>"Ok."</p><p>Dean blinks, not processing what he heard. "...Ok?"</p><p>"Yeah, I'll pick up some stuff for you after work." He puts the paper down, meanders over the coffee maker. "Anything in particular I should get?"</p><p>"Um..." Dean's brain goes blank for a second. "Well, I got Lauren. She's always losin' her gloves. So, like, maybe some mittens or somethin'?"</p><p>His dad laughs, measuring out the coffee. "Mittens 're probably a dollar at most; I'll grab a few pairs. Maybe some candy, too? A...coloring book?" He looks at Dean. "Kids your age still like coloring books?"</p><p>"Yeah...yeah, she'd love that." He swallows. "Thanks, Dad."</p><p>His dad just grunts amiably, waiting for the machine to stop making it's gurgling noises. Dean finishes pouring cereal and milk, brings everything over to the coffee table. Sam smiles at him before turning back to the tv, spooning Apple Jacks into his mouth as the Gummi Bears theme starts up. Dean doesn't change the channel, even though he hates this show. Just settles down next to Sam and lets the warm feeling spread through his stomach as they eat breakfast together.</p><p> </p><p>....</p><p> </p><p>It's early January, and the ground is blanketed with snow. The mornings are bitterly cold. Dean's settled back into school pretty well. He got all Bs and a few Cs—and an A- in math—on his first semester report card. Miss G hasn't been watching him quite as critically as before. Patricia has let him hold her hand a few times during recess. </p><p>He's been thinking about asking his dad if he can go with a few of his friends to the roller rink for his birthday. Not an actual party, but some of them go regularly and maybe Dean can tag along. He's never skated, but it doesn't seem like it'd be too hard.</p><p>And then one Sunday Dad comes home with an expression on his face that Dean knows all too well.</p><p>"Boys!" He calls out, as soon as he's in the door. "Come here."</p><p>Dean shuffles in from the kitchen, putting down the pot of Mac N' Cheese he'd been stirring. Sam scuttles in from wherever he was.</p><p>"Dean, you start getting all your stuff together. Sam's too. Make sure you don't forget anything. We're gonna have to be ready to go by Monday at noon, after I pick up my paycheck, and anything you leave behind is staying here." His father turns and heads towards the hall closet, starts pulling their duffle bags out.</p><p>Dean just stands in the middle of the living room, watching him.</p><p>"But..." He's not sure what to say. "What about...school?"</p><p>His father doesn't look up from where he's rummaging through his weapons bag. "We'll enroll you in your new school when we get to South Carolina."</p><p>Dean opens his mouth, closes it again. If they're leaving Monday, he won't even get to say goodbye to his friends. "...But what about my books? They need those back, I think."</p><p>His father stops, looks up at Dean. "Books are not what's important, Dean. There are <em>lives</em> on the line here." He grabs their coats, throws them over the back of the recliner. Dean's mouth snaps shut on an argument.</p><p>"But I gotta pick up your transcripts or I'll never hear the end of it from Bobby. I'll stop by school Monday morning for those, so you leave your books on the table and I'll drop them off then." He sighs. "I guess we'll just have to get used to this school crap. Makes everything more difficult, though."</p><p>John looks back up at Dean who's still just standing there, watching him. "Go on, start packing! I don't want you two to be scrambling around tomorrow morning, so don't dawdle now."</p><p>Dean turns on his heel and scurries down the hallway. He almost shuts the door in Sam's face, but sighs and lets him in before not-quite-slamming it.</p><p>He drops down on his bed, and he can feel the tears collecting on his eyelashes, and his breath feels thick in his chest.</p><p><em>Stupid.</em> He was stupid to get comfortable here, to let his guard down.</p><p>He should have known better.</p><p>He feels Sam's little hand on his knee. "De? Ok?"</p><p>"No, Sam. Not r'now." He pushes Sam away. It's not a hard push, but he hears Sam thump to the ground as he trips over his own dumb feet. "Just leave me alone."</p><p>He gets up and starts pulling all of their clothes out of the dresser, tossing them on the bed. Ignores the quiet sniffling that comes from the other side of the room, the <em>clack</em> of Legos being dropped in a bin.</p><p> </p><p>.......</p><p> </p><p>Orangeburg isn't too bad. There's no snow, and it's not nearly as cold. Dean's teacher is pretty nice; doesn't give him the kind of pinched, judging looks that Miss G used to.</p><p>But it's a much smaller city than Cedar Rapids, and the kids at school all seem to know each other. They've already been in class together for more than half the year, too. So Dean's a distinct outsider, getting lots of stares and whispers his first week. But it's not long before he's got them swayed. He wins their admiration with what he's learned to do, how he's learned to be, over the past year.</p><p>He doesn't make any real friends, though. At least, he wouldn't consider any of them friends, though it's obvious some of them feel differently. But Dean's not going to be that stupid again. He's not going to forget what's important and let himself get too close to any of them, like he had before.</p><p>Dad skips the day job here. He heads to Columbia once every week or so, hustles pool and darts with cocky kids from the army base. He says they're too newly loaded with their signing bonuses to be particularly upset when they lose. </p><p>It's not an amount they can depend on, though. That means the place they can afford is not as nice as Iowa. Just a small, dingy apartment with a single bedroom. It smells funny, old and musty and a little sour. But it's ok. That's what they're used to. Dean figures Iowa spoiled them, a little. It's better this way.</p><p>John scrounges up an extra twin mattress and some bedding to put on the floor in the corner, with the intention of letting the boys have the queen bed. But Sam ends up preferring to curl up in the nest on the floor, which is right next to the radiator. So it becomes his and Dean's, instead.</p><p>Dad's home more often, researching and planning, so he doesn't waste money putting Sam into daycare. He can't find a free one, anyways, since he can't prove his low income with no pay stubs or tax returns. So Sam stays in the apartment with John most of the time. If John's gotta go out to work the case, there's an older lady down the hall that'll watch him for cheap.</p><p>Dean doesn't like how Sam smells like cigarettes when he picks him up those days. But she's got a little dog she lets Sam play with, and Sam seems ok with her, so Dean doesn't say anything.</p><p>Dad says he thinks the case is a boo hag, since one of the victims was found in his bed with no skin. Or possibly a soucouyant, though he says he's not so sure anymore that they're actually distinct creatures. Either way, he and Dean go through the apartment patching up any holes or cracks they find with spackle, mixed with kosher salt and rice flour. Sam follows behind, pushing tiny fingerprints into the soft putty until Dad gets fed up and smacks his hands away and makes him sit in the corner. After that, they line the doors, windows, and air vents with the salt and uncooked rice grains.</p><p>As Dean's birthday approaches, he starts to get a pleasantly anxious feeling in his stomach. Not because he expects anything babyish and foolish like a roller-skating party anymore, but because of what Dad promised him last year. Promised him for every birthday, till he's eighteen.</p><p>His mother's legacy.</p><p>Dean didn't know much about his mother's family. Dad had said that they'd disowned her when she married him, and then her father had died not long after. It's a blank spot, in a larger picture full of blank spots, that is the Winchester family.</p><p>But last year he had learned something new.</p><p>Mary's family, on her mother's side, came from the <em>old country</em> a few generations back. Exactly where, well, that wasn't clear. All that Dean knew was that it was a place that was still steeped in lore and carried on the traditions of folk magic down through their families. Using the innocuous forms of magic— <em>no, not witches, Dean, never witches</em>—they crafted small rituals that would benefit their families and communities. Things that would lessen fevers, things that would bless a marriage with peace and prosperity. Things that would keep their houses safe from fire and flood.</p><p>Things that would protect their families from evil and harm.</p><p>There was only one tradition that was left. <em>Your mother and I were not married all that long, Dean, unfortunately, she only had time to pass this one on to me</em>. Dad said she'd been hesitant to tell him at first, thinking he'd be upset or amused by her superstition. That he'd refuse to perpetuate that kind of backwoods, old-fashioned thinking with his own son. Back then, see, John had known nothing of the supernatural. From what Dean could tell, neither did his mom, though, really, outside of the rituals that had been passed down.</p><p>The ritual in question, the only one remained, is meant for firstborn children. It's meant to impart strength and speed in action, clarity in judgement, the ability to make hard decisions quickly. It's meant to protect against harm.</p><p>Mary'd finally told John on Dean's third birthday, wanting the time to convince him if he'd been resistant. Dad had admitted to being skeptical, a little uncomfortable, at first. But he understood the longing for continuity when it came to family, his own father having abandoned them when he was still a child. And he could see how much it meant to Mary. </p><p>She'd instructed him in how to do it, written it down. He had three years to practice, since it was meant to start on Dean's sixth birthday, with the last one being done on his eighteenth. She had hoped they could do it together for him, as a team, like her parents had.</p><p>Then all those dreams had burned to ashes. </p><p>John became resolute in his intention to carry out his wife's intentions. No matter where they were or what was going on.</p><p>When Dean comes home from school the day of his birthday, his eyes are drawn to the leather bag that lies on the table in their little kitchen. He knows it contains everything they need for tonight. He finds he's kinda glad his birthday is in the winter, because the sun sets sooner, and the ritual begins when the sun begins to set.</p><p>"Hey, Son." John smiles at him from the sink, where he's crushing something dark and grainy with a mortar and pestle. Sammy sits on the floor, drawing pictures with a handful of broken crayons. "Almost ready over here. How about you?"</p><p>Dean grins up at him. "I've been ready all day!" He's excited. Not just for the ritual, but since Dad said he could stay home from school tomorrow. They'd be up late and <em>it's a Friday, anyways</em>.</p><p>Dean drops his book bag on the coffee table. He walks over to where Sam's busy scribbling away, crouches down. "Whatcha drawing, Sammy?"</p><p>Sam looks up at him, almost shyly, and then back down at what he's coloring. He considers it a minute, scribbles one more thing in the corner, and then hands it over to Dean. </p><p>"'S a dragon." He points to the spiky blue mass that takes up half the paper. "An' you, De." He points to a much smaller figure on the other side.</p><p>Dean peers closely, sees that the little Dean on the paper is holding up something long and sharp, that's almost bigger than he is. There's red scribbled all over it, and a round, red scribble underneath it. He notices the dragon has the same red by one of its 'eyes'—at least, he thinks those are eyes—and all around its neck, with an even bigger red scribble underneath.</p><p>"Oh, that's really cool, Sam!" He grins at Sam. "So, I'm a badass dragon slayer, huh?"</p><p>Sam nods and dimples up at him, happy that Dean seems to like his art. When Dean goes to hand it back to him, Sam pushes his hand back. "Nuh. Happ' Birfday, De."</p><p>As he says it, he runs his finger over two lines of nonsensical scrawling loops at the top of the picture. Dean's heart gives off a little burst of warmth. Sammy's made him a birthday card. </p><p>"Aw, thanks, Sammy. I love it." He holds his arms out and Sam practically launches into them, almost knocking Dean over onto his back. Dean hears his father chuckling from the sink.</p><p>When he's finally able to untangle Sam from his lap, he goes to see if his dad needs any help. John shakes his head as he uses a tiny silver spoon to sprinkle a greenish-grey powder. It slowly sinks into the ink that he's just made.</p><p>"We're good to go here." He covers all the tools and supplies up with a large piece of white cotton cloth. "Pizza'll be here in about fifteen minutes. After we're done eating, it'll be about time to start."</p><p>"Pizza? Awesome!" Dean grins. Maybe this will be an even better birthday than he expected.</p><p>After dinner, Dean helps Sam clean up his greasy fingers and tomato-smeared face while dad sets up the table and hangs a blanket in front of the kitchen window.</p><p>When Dean and Sam enter the darkened kitchen, both of their eyes are wide, reflecting the flickering candlelight. </p><p>The white cloth covers the table now. On top, there are three candles. A bronze bowl filled with a dark liquid. A bamboo paintbrush. A small jar of oil. And dad's leather-bound journal, open to two pages covered with symbols and notations.</p><p>"Cool." Dean breathes.</p><p>"Now, boys, I want to remind you about what I told you last time. And this is very important, so listen up." His voice is stern, but not angry. "The most important thing you have to remember is that you <em>cannot</em> talk about this to anyone outside of this family. Not ever! That would break the chain of tradition, and that means that the protection that this gives you will be lost." He looks at them both. "Do you understand?" </p><p>Dean nods. </p><p>"Sammy, that means you too, ok? You don't talk about tonight with anyone, ever." Dad holds his finger up in front of his lips, and Sam nods, too, eyes big, repeating the gesture. "Good. Ok, Dean, sit down."</p><p>Dean pulls off his t-shirt and sits in the chair John has gestured to. He doesn't know why he's nervous. He's done this before, though the details of last year are a little sketchy. But he knows it's a good thing, and he knows his dad will keep him safe. </p><p>Maybe it's just because it means so much. Means <em>Mom</em>.</p><p>"Sam, you can watch, but you need to keep quiet, ok?" Sam nods and moves to stand on the other side of Dean, a few feet back from the table.</p><p>John sits down in the other chair, and then closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Another. One more. He murmurs some words that Dean can't quite make out.</p><p>He opens his eyes and smiles at Dean, reassuring. Picks up the jar of oil. </p><p>"Close your eyes, Dean."</p><p>Dean does.</p><p>In the dark, he can hear the breaths of his father and brother. A cork being pulled out of a bottle. He feels the warm, creeping feeling of oil being poured on the crown of his head. Not much, not enough to drip. His father's thumb presses gently into his hair. Drags through the oil, makes three clockwise circles, each a little bigger than the last. There's more words he can't understand, though his dad speaks them louder this time. </p><p>When the thumb is removed, John tells him he can open his eyes.</p><p>It could just be his imagination, but the light from the candles seems to glow just a tiny bit more golden than it did before.</p><p>Dad places his own right hand over the bronze bowl, and then takes Dean's hand and places it on top of his. Dad's hand feels warm and strong. Dean can feel the textures of the scars that litter his skin under his own palm and fingertips.</p><p>"Repeat after me," his dad says. "Hoc aether..."</p><p>"Hock...ether..." He hopes he's close enough.</p><p>"Erigit corpus..."</p><p>"Eragit...corpus..."</p><p>Dean can hear Sam whispering behind him, so softly he can't be sure. But it sounds like he's also trying to repeat what John is saying, in his soft lisp. Dean tries hard not to smile at the stumbling syllables.</p><p>After they bless the ink, his dad dips the end of the brush in the bowl and turns towards Dean. He brings it to his forehead. As he draws the first symbol there, he starts to chant again. When he lifts the brush, Dean feels a tingling warmth spread out just under his skin from the spot.</p><p>From behind him, he hears Sam gasp a little, just a tiny indrawn breath. But then his father is back with the ink, drawing a series of lines and curves over his lips, and Dean's attention is back on the ritual.</p><p>From there, it progresses. The brush passes under his eyes; on his temples. His ears, his jaw. Each time one is completed, Dean feels that warm buzz. It's so slight, and fades gently, but it's <em>there</em>. </p><p>Dad moves on to his neck, his shoulders, his arms. His hands are covered: backs, palms, each finger. Then he moves up to the final stretch, bringing the brush up to his sternum, to paint the final symbol over his heart. Just as he's about to touch it to his skin, Dean feels a light, cool touch on his arm, right over the sigil on his forearm. He glances down to see Sam leaning in to examine his arm, and a slight smile lifts the edge of Dean's mouth.</p><p>There's a blur of movement in front of Dean's face, followed by a loud <i>smack</i>. He jerks back, but the hand has already found its target.</p><p>Sam stumbles back and falls onto the peeling vinyl floor. He lifts his tiny hand and presses it against the side of his face, then looks up at them. His lips starts to quiver.</p><p>There's a slight motion on Dean's other side, and he glances over. John is leaning forward, silent, a stony, cold expression on his face, and he shakes his head as he stares down at Sam. Dean knows that expression; Sam knows it well, too. </p><p>It's one that you don't dare defy.</p><p>When it's clear Sam will remain silent, outside of a few shaky breaths, Dad turns back to Dean. His face smooths out, and he offers Dean an apologetic half-smile. The brush is lifted again, the last symbol drawn. The warmth and tingling feels the same as before, and he feels it again in all the other symbols that have been painted on his body, before it fades away again.</p><p>His dad lifts the bottle of oil, and it's poured on the same spot on the top of his head again. He says another blessing, this time rubbing his thumb in the other direction in decreasing circles.</p><p>"All done." He puts down the vial and turns back to Dean, giving him a soft smile. "Good job, Son."</p><p>Dean pulls on his <em>everything's-great</em> smile. He's not sure how he feels. Exhilarated, like he remembers feeling last time. But there's a damper on it now, it's muted. He also feels anxious still, but that's also muted, because he knows what's going to happen next now, at least. No real surprises.</p><p>And, because of that, he feels...<em>angry</em>. </p><p>So fucking angry.</p><p>He knows he should feel bad about that, and he probably will later. But right now all he can feel is venom, and a tiny bit of hatred. </p><p>At his father, for taking things a little too far, like he often does. For his typical lack of patience when it comes to Sam. For bringing violence into this one small thing Dean has of his mother.</p><p>And, even more so than that—and it surprises him to realize it—at Sam. For interfering, for taking away from what's supposed to be <em>Dean's</em>, like he often does. For antagonizing their father. For ruining Dean's birthday.</p><p>It's just not <em>fair</em>.</p><p>Dean stands up, eager to get out of the kitchen before his dad starts in on Sam. Dean doesn't think he'll hit him again tonight, probably. That was just practical, a warning shot. But there's bound to be a lot of furious lecturing, and even more furious shouting. And pitiful tears on Sam's part, that Dean wants nothing to do with right now.</p><p>"Remember, don't wash those off until the sun's up tomorrow, Dean."</p><p>"I won't, Dad."</p><p>He hightails it out without even looking in Sam's direction, because he knows that his conviction will falter if he does.</p><p>He slips into the bathroom just as he hears his father's voice start up. Right now the anger is restrained. Held in check until he really gets worked up.</p><p>"What's wrong with you, Sam?? I told you not to interfere, at least a dozen times today. Do you know how dangerous that was? You could have broken the ritual! Your brother would have lost his protection, or even worse, been hurt by the—"</p><p>Dean shuts the door to block out as much as he can. He doesn't always get his dad. Doesn't know what he's thinking. It's not like Sam can understand even half of what he's saying right now. He's too young. But John's anger, the backhand...those should be enough. Sam's not dumb, even if he does dumb stuff, sometimes. </p><p>Sure, he's stubborn, and he can be selfish and rash and a little shit, sometimes. But he doesn't like making his father angry. And he likes hurting Dean even less.</p><p>Dean sighs. Pushes all thoughts of Dad and Sam out of his head. Looks in the mirror over the sink, smiles as he turns his face from side to side. Lifts his arms in front of him, looks down at his hands, turning them over. He takes some time to delight in how <em>cool</em> he looks, with black sigils spread over his skin like mysterious tattoos.</p><p>Whatever else happened tonight doesn't matter, really. Dean can feel it. The ritual was completed, it <em>worked</em>. He likes to think he can feel his mom now. In his heart, close to him, hugging him where the symbols mark his skin. He knows that this little piece of magic will make him a better hunter someday. </p><p>A hunter like his dad.</p><p>Able to be a leader. Able to protect his family, keep them safe.</p><p>Dean's already in bed, lying on his back, staring at the shadows on the ceiling, when he feels the blankets move as Sam crawls in behind him. When Sam shuffles forward to try and nestle into him, Dean pulls away, rolling over towards the wall without a word.</p><p>Sam doesn't follow. Doesn't make a sound, either, which Dean's grateful for.</p><p>He sighs, silently. He'll make it up to Sam tomorrow. For now...it's his birthday. He's allowed to feel a little bitter, if he wants.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>In my mind John and Bobby have always argued like an old married couple that <i>says</i> they only stay together for the kids. But even the kids know they'd still find reasons to get drunk and things to fight about even if they <i>didn't</i> have kids. </p><p>And everyone knows no one else would put up with their shit, anyways.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Through the grimy window, the crumbling bricks of the row houses across the street are stripped of color, everything black and grey and jaundiced. There's only one streetlamp working, so most of the neighborhood is flooded in twitchy shadows outside of the dim and sickly yellow pool of sodium light. Sam knows all too well that there wouldn't be much color to see even if it were the middle of the day. 
</p><p>Boarded windows, weed-choked stoops, the charred, faded black stain of a long-ago fire that creeps up the sides of buildings flanking an empty lot. Even the graffiti on this block has given up; just a few sad tags in blacks and reds, the lines runny and diffuse. 
</p><p>Nothing like the elaborate technicolor bombs Dean and he would spot from the rooftop last summer in Brooklyn on the passing subway trains. That had been better than watching television. Cans of soup, aliens, cartoon figures. Exhortations to <em>REVOLT</em> and <em>EAT THE RICH</em>. Names like <em>Daze</em> and <em>Tracy 168</em> and <em>LEE</em> and <em>Pink</em>, where each letter was a work of art itself. 
</p><p>They'd try and find a place in the shade to sit, where the tar paper wasn't half-liquid, but their rocket pops would still melt in seconds, leaving their fingers and hands and arms red and blue and sticky. But Dean had learned to lift wallets a few months before from a kid at his school in Pittsburgh and was always flush. So when they'd reached the frying point, soaked in sweat and needing more cold sugar, they'd just run down to the bodega on the corner of the block for Jarritos or Choco Tacos. Sam would crouch down and carefully pet the grey tabby lacing through his ankles, while Dean flirted with the girls in the tiny shorts and headwraps out front under the awning. Then they'd race each other back up the dingy stairs, Dean pretending to be out of breath on the third landing to let Sam catch up.
</p><p>It was only five weeks, and the city could be dangerous if you didn't pay attention, and it kinda smelled...but it was <em>alive;</em> everything in it seemed to buzz and jitter and dance in the edges of Sam's vision. And it was <em>theirs,</em> at least while they lived there in that cramped fourth floor walk-up. They had everything they could want right at their fingers; had the run of the neighborhood. 
</p><p>People got to know them, paid them a buck or two to run messages or small packages a few blocks away when they were too busy themselves. Called their names out, <em>heysamandean!</em>, laughing, when they ran by too fast.  They’d join in when other kids opened up a fire hydrant and splashed around in the street—which Dean said was just smart, ‘cause Dad didn’t know how many of the deaths were due to the ifrit, and how many were just due to the crazy heat that summer.
</p><p>They were kings. Little sweaty, dirty kings of a domain that only <em>really</em> consisted of the two of them, no matter how crowded it was.
</p><p>It seems idyllic when Sam thinks about it now. Kinda like a dream, a good one. Color and life and music and sun and <em>Dean</em>, happy and golden and excited and pointing out each new thing to Sam as he tugged him along at his side. 
</p><p>Dad doesn't let them go outside on their own here. 
</p><p>Baltimore's a strange city; full of so many divisions. Some of it, parts he's seen only through the Impala's window, is beautiful and what Miss Holly at his last daycare would probably call <em>quaint</em>. But so much of the rest of it is so destitute and deteriorated and depressed. 
</p><p>And <em>angry</em>. 
</p><p>And Sam can't really blame it, can't fault the city, not when it's choked with the kind of grief and despair that lives behind all that decaying and neglected brick, that's lived there for decades. It deserves that anger; it's <em>earned</em> it.
</p><p>Still, it makes Sam feel sad, and small. Smaller, even, than he normally does.
</p><p>Behind him, there's a clatter of wood and metal. The squeaking of a chair as Dean gets up to look in the spotted mirror that leans up against the wall near the door. Sam sees the ghost of his brother reflected on the window as he admires his ink, a gleaming figure overlaid on the crawling darkness outside.
</p><p>"This year you'll do it for Sammy, too, since he's finally gonna be six. Right, Dad?"
</p><p>There's a silence, a beat too long, as John continues to clear the table, bringing the last of the bowls to the sink for Sam to wash as he stands on the old plastic step stool.
</p><p>Sam runs his fingertips over the carved symbols that run around the edge of the bowl, grounding himself as he takes in the feel of every tiny bump and groove. He'd insisted on wanting to help this year, didn't care that it was only with the cleaning. Just wanted a little part of making Dean's birthday special. And this is harmless; he can't mess up washing dishes.
</p><p>Sam holds his breath while he waits for his father's answer, rubbing the white cotton cloth against the same bronze bowl over and over again.
</p><p>"...No."
</p><p>"...You said this makes me <em>safe</em>, right? And strong."
</p><p>"Of course it does."
</p><p>More silence. Sam keeps scrubbing in small circles. He might end up burning a hole through the metal, but he'll stay quiet, at least.
</p><p>"But...don't you want Sam to be safe, too, Dad?"
</p><p>Sam hears John stop moving and sigh. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees him step over to Dean and place his hands on his shoulders, both of them looking at each other in the mirror.
</p><p>"It's not that, Dean. It's that this is only meant for the <em>first</em> born. That's the tradition. And you know that tradition is where the power for these kinds of rituals come from. If I tried to do the same thing for Sam, go against the custom, the ritual wouldn't work for him. And it may no longer work for <em>you</em> anymore, either. And then you'd both be without protection, and your mother's heritage would be lost. Is that what you want to happen?"
</p><p>Dean's voice is quiet and chastened, and a little sad. "...No."
</p><p>"Anyways, Dean, that's what <em>you</em> do, right? With all your extra warding and strength. <em>You</em> take care of Sam. <em>You</em> keep him safe. Right?"
</p><p>Sam can feel Dean's eyes on him, watching him in the warped, dark glass of the mirror. Can feel the proud smile Dean's directing at his little brother. 
</p><p>He keeps his eyes down on the sink full of salted water in front of him.
</p><p>"Yeah, that's right, Dad. I'll a<em>lways</em> take care of Sammy."
</p><p>The sound of John's hand clapping firm against Dean's shoulder. 
</p><p>"That's my boy."
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>.......
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Baltimore is a nightmare in the end. 
</p><p>At least, it features in many of Sam's over the next year, and those that follow. He'd seen his father hurt before; seen him stumble home in the endless, grey hours of the early morning: bloodied, torn, bruised, even barely conscious and half-carried in by other hunters...it kept him awake a lot at night when John was out hunting. The fear, the worry. Would he come home like that again this time? Would he come home <em>at all </em>?
</p><p>But none of that had prepared him for that last night in Baltimore. 
</p><p>His father, crashing through the door, falling over with a thud. Scrambling out of bed, hearts pounding.  Dean's panicked cry <em>Dad, Dad, wake up, get up, Dad, please</em>. The blood, so much of it, there shouldn't be that much outside of a body. The raw edges of white bone thrusting out of the flesh of his twisted left arm. His face, so swollen and bruised and split, Sam isn't even sure it's really his father for a minute.
</p><p>The long gash across his belly, where all the blood spills out, red and black on the floor.
</p><p>Sam panics. He freezes, in his pajamas, in the doorway to the bedroom. He forgets how to breathe. 
</p><p>He would chew over it in the weeks to come. Run over and over it in his head in the months that followed when he laid in bed at night, or in the backseat of the car. Would think about what he could have done, should have done. Is instead swallowed by the shame and guilt he feels for having stood there doing <em>nothing</em>, terrified and unmoving, staring as Dean pulled the ragged blanket from John's makeshift bed on the couch to press against the wound. Rooted in place, watching Dean's mouth move as he shouted, not hearing any sound.
</p><p>Useless. Helpless.
</p><p>It's Dean screaming his name, the terror and suppressed tears in his voice, that shakes him out of it. Sound fills the world again like someone threw a switch.
</p><p>"SAM! <em>Please</em>!"
</p><p>His lips are numb and cold. "De—I...what? What do I <em>do</em>?"
</p><p>"Go to the phone. Call...Call Bobby!"
</p><p>Sam trembles. He's not able to cry yet, though, for some reason. "B-bobby's in S-s-south Dakota."
</p><p>"So wha—? Sam, Dad's gonna fucking <em>die</em>! Don't jus' stand there! <em>Call him</em>!"
</p><p>"But isn't...Dad said—Sean, we, he—he's in Wa—"
</p><p>"Sammy, call Bobby <em>NOW</em>! He'll know who to get over here, who's close, goddamnit, do you <em>want</em> Dad to die?? Do you want it to be your fault?"
</p><p>Sam goes cold, runs from the room. Pulls the phone down off the wall, starts dialing with shaky fingers. Gets it wrong, once, twice, before he gets through the numbers.
</p><p>It rings. Four times. Five.
</p><p>Six.
</p><p>There's a bleary voice on the other end, annoyed and barely awake.
</p><p>"You better be fuckin' dyin', whoever this is. It's two in the goddamn morning and it's <em>not</em> my night to—"
</p><p>"B-B-bobby..." Sam's voice isn't much more than a whisper, but he can't seem to get his breath yet.
</p><p>"Who is this?" Bobby sounds more awake, less irritated, more concerned. "...Sam? That you?"
</p><p>"Yeah—" He croaks, clears his throat. "I—Bobby, we need help. Please."
</p><p>"You ok, kid? What's goin' on?" All trace of sleep is gone from his voice.
</p><p>"It's...it's Dad." He takes a shuddering breath. "...'s bad."
</p><p>"Where you at?"
</p><p>"Baltimore. Um, North Brice?"
</p><p>"Maryland, Maryland, fuck, who's in—" Sam hears Bobby muttering, his voice getting faint like he's not next to the phone. "Ok, got it. I c'n have someone there for you in an hour at most."
</p><p>There's a moment of quiet, where Sam's brain both stalls and races.
</p><p>"Sam? You still there? You hear me, kid?"
</p><p>"Yeah...an hour..." He whispers.
</p><p>"You don't think you got an hour, boy? Be honest; you gotta call 911 if that's the case, if your daddy's hurt that bad."
</p><p>"I dunno Bobby, he's..." He chokes back a sob. "Dean's trying...there's a lot. A lot of blood."
</p><p>"Sam..." Bobby's voice goes gentle, patient, gruff. "Can you go check for me? Ask Dean what he thinks, ok?"
</p><p>"...ok"
</p><p>He puts the phone down on the table, looks at the door to the living room. Edges over.
</p><p>"...Dean?"
</p><p>"What'd he say Sammy? He got someone?" Dean's face is pale, his voice both hopeful and apprehensive.
</p><p>"An hour..." He swallows, looks at his dad, skin white under the blood and bruises. "Do we...do we got'n hour?"
</p><p>Dean trembles, blinks back tears. Looks down at the unmoving body, at the soaked blanket he's got pressed to his stomach. "...Yeah...I think...yeah, we can make it an hour. Bleeding's slowed down."
</p><p>"Gonna be more than an hour. Gotta get him somewhere after that, still..." Sam thinks he might throw up. "Bobby says we can call 911 and—"
</p><p>"NO!" Dean barks. Licks his lips, blinks. "No. No way, Sammy. Not here. They find us here, like this, they'll take us from him. Take us away. For good."
</p><p>"Yeah, yeah...ok. But, um...his pulse?"
</p><p>"What?"
</p><p>"Didja, y'know, check it? Is it too slow? Too fast? I dunno."
</p><p>"Yeah, ok, that's a good idea." Dean fumbles with his free hand, takes the wrist of the arm that's not broken. Counts under his breath, looking at his dad's watch. "I think...I think it's ok?"
</p><p>They look at each other, lost, scared.
</p><p>"Just...jus' go tell Bobby to get someone here, <em>fast</em>. We'll call 911 if he...if we have to."
</p><p>Sam nods, curt, and dashes back to the phone. He feels faint and grey and thin.
</p><p>He hears Bobby's voice, distant and tinny, talking to someone, when he picks the phone up.
</p><p>"Yeah, Baltimore...looks like Sandtown? John Winchester...Not sure, I think the Hebrew Orphanage? I don't fuckin' know, angry spirits, poltergiests, what does it matter—yeah, ok...Ok. I'll get the exact address for you as soon as I can. Then you fly the fuck outta there, alright? Those ki—"
</p><p>"Bobby?"
</p><p>"Hold on, Sean." Bobby's voice comes back at full volume. "Sam? How's it look?"
</p><p>"Dean thinks...he thinks we should wait for someone."
</p><p>There's a pause. "What do <em>you</em> think?"
</p><p>"I..." Sam's barely thinking at all right now. Barely upright. "I think Dean's right."
</p><p>"Ok...ok, kid. Gimme the address. Sounds like it should only be about forty minutes, so good news, right?"
</p><p>Sam doesn't remember the rest of the conversation much. He must give Bobby the right info, because thirty-eight minutes later, while Sam holds stained sheets to his dad's open guts and Dean finishes jamming stuff into their bags, there's a pounding at the door.
</p><p>It's not until at least two hours later that Sam feels like he catches up with his body. He’s sitting alone in a dimly lit exam room in a small private clinic outside of Owings Mills. They've finished stitching him up. They said the cut wasn't as bad as it looked, not too deep. But if they hadn't gotten blood in him when they did...well. Things would have ended differently.
</p><p>Dean’s gone in to help Sean and the doctor hold the broken arm in place while John's bone is forced back into his body.
</p><p>That’s when Sam's finally able to cry.
</p><p>Like he always does, over everything.
</p><p>He rubs at the dried blood covering his boney hands, his scrawny arms; watches it flake off onto the vinyl tiles. Sobs, quietly as he can, while other people fight to save his father's life on an exam table down the hall.
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>.......
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>When Sam wakes up, the room is empty. A little cold, too, but he doesn't mind that, because Dad had piled a couple of extra wool blankets from the car onto their bed, and the nest he's nestled in is warm and cozy.
</p><p>But there's a Dean-shaped empty spot next to him that he doesn't like much.
</p><p>Sam's not surprised that Dad still isn't back in Flagstaff yet. He said he'd probably be gone till at least Thursday, having to head into Las Cruces to meet up with another hunter for something ambiguous. 
</p><p>The past several months had been rough. They'd spent a few weeks at Pastor Jim's place while John recovered from the worst of his injuries. Sam's always loved it there—admires Jim's patience, his faith. The way he's so welcoming, so accepting. Kind, while still being strong.
</p><p>Even still, when they're at Jim's, Sam tends to hang back, stay in the background. He has this nagging feeling he doesn't really belong there, even though Jim has never once made him feel that way..
</p><p>But this time, he'd spent more time being scarce than usual. Dad was always difficult when hurt. Not so much because of pain or exhaustion or anything like that, which Sam might've understood, but because he was <em>stuck</em>. 
</p><p>Unable to move, to act, to fight, to kill. It drove him through various stages of misery, from boiling anger to cold, silent remoteness. Worst of all, to sadness, to despair—an overwhelming feeling of worthlessness and failure that rolled off of him, permeating everything.
</p><p>He always expected to see tears on Dad's face when he was like that, tears that never were there. But it was so consuming, so <em>wrong</em>, coming from a man who never let anything weak or vulnerable leak out, that it strangled Sam; terrified him, even.
</p><p>So he hid. In books, in silence. In places where John wasn’t. 
</p><p>He didn’t know what else to do.
</p><p>Dean on the other hand, Dean always did. While their dad recovered, Dean held vigil at John's side. Mostly quiet, or talking about things that would normally make their father laugh, that would maybe get a thin smile from him now. Bring him whatever he needed: water, food, medicine, his journal.
</p><p>Even when John fell into that depressed place that scared Sam so much...well, Dean would squeeze his dad's hand. Tell him <em>it's gonna be ok</em> in a quiet voice, completely focused on his father.
</p><p>Sam would watch from across the room, out of the corner of his eye. Feel a deep stab of something in his gut, something that felt like envy. Maybe resentment. But he was never sure whom exactly he felt it for—Dean, or his dad. 
</p><p>Knew that, either way, it was the wrong thing to feel. Selfish and cruel; only someone <em>bad</em> would feel like that.
</p><p>So, mostly, he stayed out of the way. It was far too cold to be outside in Minnesota in February, but the chapel, which the house sat behind, was always open. Always warm, and quiet, and usually empty. 
</p><p>And although Sam was unsure if someone as awful as him was even wanted in a holy place like that, he still took advantage of it. Liked to curl up on a pew and doze; knowing, at least, that he was safe here.
</p><p>After they left Jim’s, things didn't get much better. At the very least, John was no longer despondent. 
</p><p>But he was ornery. 
</p><p>The cast on his arm that kept him from being able to fight, the fading blooms of bruises and the healing cuts on his face that kept him from interacting with witnesses or victims...not being able to hunt made his temper short and his reactions volcanic.
</p><p>Even Dean gave him space when he was like this. Sam, well, he was stuck in a motel room with John all day while Dean was at school. He tried to stay out of his dad's way while he obsessively researched and planned, tried not to bother him or be a whiny brat. 
</p><p>But Dad still had to remind him sometimes.  
</p><p>They had all been happy when the cast finally came off, and John had whisked them off to Arizona. 
</p><p>Sam blinks blearily at the clock between the beds. It reads 6:29. The room is filled with a creamy coral light, like the inside of a conch shell, so he guesses that's about right. He stretches, savoring the early morning quiet, curling deeper into the warm sheets. Sighs.
</p><p>As comfortable and silent as the room is, it's kinda lonely, too. 
</p><p>Dean won't be home from school till 3:30 at least. Sometimes almost 4 if the bus is running late. Sam doesn't like being stuck alone in a motel room that long, but there's not many places he can go by himself since he's still so small. 
</p><p>At least the big apartment complex across the field behind the motel has a playground, and it's always full of at least a few kids around his age with no one watching them. So no one blinks an eye if he sits on the swings for a few hours or climbs up to read in the tower.
</p><p>And he's got a couple of new books. He'd sneaked them out of the Salvation Army store last week when Dad had taken them to get Dean some shoes after the left sole fell off his old ones. 
</p><p>There's a really old copy of <em>Grimm's Fairy Tales</em>, the cover water-stained and bloated and falling apart, but the inside is mostly fine even if it smells kind of musty. It's big and thick and full of beautiful black-and-white illustrations. It's also pretty creepy and gruesome, in a way, which Sam likes much better than the sappy versions he's heard at daycare before. 
</p><p>The other one is <em>On the Banks of Plum Creek.</em> Dean likes to tease Sam that the Little House books are for girls, but Sam thinks that stupid. They're really interesting, and just because they were written by a girl and about a girl doesn't mean boys can't like them, too. And Laura's pretty cool, if you ask Sam.
</p><p>At least Dean isn't here to tease him today, anyways. He can read all day in peace if he wants.
</p><p>He doesn't have long to savor his solitude, because it's barely a minute till the grey door creaks open, before slamming shut with a <em>bang</em>.
</p><p>"Dammit." Dean hisses.
</p><p>"'Dean?" Sam mumbles from under the covers.
</p><p>"Hey, Sammy! Sorry about that. Had my hands fulla shit."
</p><p>Sam rolls over and peeks out from under the covers. Dean's carefully placing styrofoam cups and a paper bag on the tiny table near the window.
</p><p>"Whassat?"
</p><p>"What do ya think it is, dummy?" Dean rolls his eyes. "'S breakfast."
</p><p>"You're the dummy." Sam grumbles, sitting up and rubbing the crusty stuff out of his eyes. "I know it's breakfast. Jus'...don't you got school today?"
</p><p>"Nope." Dean pops the lid off one of the cups and dumps a sugar packet in. Sam doesn't know how he can drink that stuff; it's so bitter. "I have the whole day off, on account of it bein' a holiday an' all."
</p><p>Sam stumbles his way over to the table, squints at Dean as he starts pulling things out of the bag. "Holiday? What holiday is it?"
</p><p>"Well, duh, it's my little brother's birthday." Dean grins at him. "He only turns six once, y'know. Kinda more important than stupid <em>school</em>."
</p><p>Sam finds himself really intent on fumbling the lid off the other cup, trying to hide the pleased flush on his face. It's full to the top with orange juice. The kind with just a little pulp in it, but not <em>too</em> much, just like Sam likes best.
</p><p>"Isn't Dad gonna be pissed at you if he finds out?"
</p><p>"Nah. '<em>Dad</em>' already called the school and let 'em know I'm sick and am gonna have to stay home today."
</p><p>Sam takes a sip of his OJ, looks at him doubtfully. "No way they thought you sounded like a grown-up, Dean."
</p><p>"Good thing that Diego at the front desk didn't mind makin' a two-minute phone call for a pack of Camels, then." Dean smirks, and tosses Sam something bigger than both his hands put together, which he tries not to drop on the dingy, threadbare carpet. "There ya go. Blueberry, your favorite."
</p><p>Sam smiles. It's still nice and warm, golden-baked sugar crystals dusting the top, and there's little packets of butter on the table. He decides that he won't give Dean a hard time for stealing cigarettes, since he also apparently got up extra early to go raid the free breakfast bar across the street at the Howard Johnson before everything good was gone.
</p><p>"There's yogurt and some fruit and crap in there, too. Can put it in the fridge for later, though, if ya want. I think that muffin is bigger than you are."
</p><p>"Thanks, Dean." Sam smiles up at his big brother. "This is awesome."
</p><p>Dean waves him off, suddenly very interested in thoroughly chewing his own cherry danish, slathered in icing. "Ish shno big deal."
</p><p>They eat in companionable silence, mouths stuffed full of sugar. Sam only makes it through half his muffin and a little plastic cup of melon before he's full, putting the rest of it away for lunch or dinner, depending on how hungry he is later.
</p><p>Dean stuffs the rest of his second danish in his mouth—cream cheese this time—before throwing his balled-up napkin at Sam. "Alright, shrimp. Go get dressed and make friends with a comb. We got places to be."
</p><p>"Don' call me <em>shrimp</em>, jerk." Sam says automatically as he gets up to rifle through his duffel bag. "Where we goin'?"
</p><p>"It's a surprise," Dean grins at him. "...squirt."
</p><p>Sam shoots him his most disdainful look as he pulls on his jeans. "Dean. Jus'...no. It's <em>Sam</em>."
</p><p>"Ok, Sammy."
</p><p>Sam sighs, long-suffering, as he turns to brush his teeth and hair, well aware that the mirror does nothing to hide his smile.
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>.......
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Sam squeezes the backpack sitting in his lap with his hands, feeling the thick sweatshirt and flashlight inside that Dean insisted he take underneath them. Dean's backpack also carries similar items, which did nothing to quell Sam's curious questions.
</p><p>He squirms in the bus seat, looking out the window at the tall, scrubby pines, the mountain peak in the distance, as they head north out of town. It's a nice bus, one of those kind of touristy buses that you see at parks and historic monuments. Not a city bus or an old Greyhound. 
</p><p>Everything's clean and smells good. The handful of people on the bus are dressed in neat, practical clothes and chat amiably with each other. No squalling babies, no one arguing or sermonizing or muttering to themselves. Sam runs his fingers back and forth over the purple-and-grey upholstery, the smooth, short fibers springing back behind them. No gross stains or rips and tears, no mystery puddles on the floor. 
</p><p>Dean said it didn't cost them anything when Sam had gotten worried. That he'd offered to pay the driver, but he'd looked at the twenty bucks in Dean's hand and told him not to worry about. That the bus was mostly empty and he was getting paid to drive it either way 
</p><p>Sam's given up asking where they're headed. Dean's good at keeping a secret when he really wants to. He knows he'll find out when he gets there, but he thinks Dean doesn't understand how much it drives Sam nuts when he doesn't <em>know</em> things; doesn't know what's going on. 
</p><p>But Dean's really excited about the surprise, so he doesn't let his frustration show.
</p><p>After about a half an hour's drive, they finally pull up to a clearing in the woods. All Sam can see is a circle of rocks around a round depression in the ground.
</p><p>He looks at Dean in confusion. "Where are we?"
</p><p>Dean just smiles like a sphinx. "C'mon, let's get out. You'll see."
</p><p>They exit the bus and make their way over to the stones, where the rest of the bus's occupants are already pulling on sweatshirts and jackets and backpacks. Sam peers over the rim; sees more rocks...and a crevice, a dark, low arch, leading down into the darkness.
</p><p>He turns huge eyes towards Dean. "No way! A cave? Like a <em>real</em> one?"
</p><p>Dean's grin could probably light up the whole cave by itself. "Yeah, a real one." He gestures over to a metal sign embedded in the rocks.
</p><p>Sam runs over, any annoyance at having been made to wait completely gone. He reads that Lava River Cave is a magma tube, over a mile long, seared and melted into the rock by a volcanic vent hundreds of thousands of years ago. It's legit; a long, dark tunnel under the earth, no lights except for what they bring in themselves, unlike the signs for various tourist-trap caverns and caves they've seen on the road over the years. No gift shop. No rails or paved paths.
</p><p>Just a hole in the ground; just stone and ice and darkness, and him and Dean to explore it all. 
</p><p>Well, them and the half-dozen or so people milling about.
</p><p>Dean must read his mind, because he smiles at Sam and jerks his head towards the cave's mouth. "C'mon, let's get going before we get stuck behind all the old people."
</p><p>A woman hovering around the sign with blonde curly hair, probably about their Dad's age, turns and gives them a deeply offended look. Sam blushes and is about to apologize, when she winks at them and smiles. 
</p><p>"Yeah, I mean, the rest of 'em are gonna take forever to get ready to go, anyways. But if you wait too long we'll definitely slow you kids down with our plodding. You better lead the way, brave adventurers."
</p><p>They grin and sprint over to the tumble of rocks leading into the mouth of the cave. Dean makes Sam stop so they can throw on their sweatshirts and get their flashlights clipped to the outside of their bags, before they start clambering over the rocks. They go a little more slowly than they might like to, since some of the rocks are a little slippery, and there aren't really any easy handholds. Once inside the cave, there's a set of stairs leading down into the darkness below. There's still some light from the mouth here, but it's dim enough that they both switch their lights on so they can see. 
</p><p>When they reach the floor of the cave, Sam reaches out towards a stalagmite on his right. It's smooth and cold; too cold to be rock, and his hand comes away a little wet. He shines his light into it, and it refracts out the other side to spread across the cave wall.
</p><p>"Cool." He murmurs. "Dean! This is <em>ice</em>!"
</p><p>"Yeah, looks like there's a bunch of them. On the ceiling, too. It must stay pretty damn cold down here.”
</p><p>"This place is so awesome." Sam can't control his grin.
</p><p>"I <em>know.</em>" 
</p><p>He can hear it in Dean's voice, too.
</p><p>They make their way through the cave. It seems like they got in far enough ahead of the other group that they don't hear or see them at all on their way in, so it's just like it's only the two of them left in the whole wide world, adventuring under the earth together.
</p><p>The first bit is pretty rocky and uneven and slick, and they have to pay attention to where they're climbing over things, but after that it smooths out to be a pretty level walk. Sam starts looking around more after that, entranced with the weirdness and novelty of everything around them..
</p><p>There's a huge kind of hall with tall ceilings where they end up turning their lights off, listening to their breathing in the utter darkness. When Sam says something to Dean, they notice how their voices echo eerily back at them from hidden corners of the room, the sounds not quite making words, transmuting into muttering and whispering in some unknown language. 
</p><p>They, of course, spend five minutes here experimenting, shouting and whispering and laughing and singing and yelping, seeing who can make the creepiest or most ridiculous noises.
</p><p>There are smaller sections of the tunnel, more like tubes than anything. In some places the ceiling only reaches a half a foot or so over Dean's head. There are places where lava has carved lines and marks running along the walls, which Sam trails his fingers along. 
</p><p>There's a lot of sand as they near the end of the tunnel, where the ceiling gets lower and lower. The floor is covered with it; their muted footsteps disappearing.
</p><p>"Where did all this come from? Like the rest is all solid rock, like, blasted out by lava, and then there's a fucking weird-ass <em>beach</em>. Maybe a river?"
</p><p>"Sign said it's just the dripping of water and snow melting and stuff. So, like, through all the cracks in the rock, mostly. One grain at a time."
</p><p>"Damn. That must have taken forever. Like <em>thousands</em> of years."
</p><p>"Prob'ly." Sam agrees. 
</p><p>He tries to let his mind stretch back, to think what a hundred thousand years must feel like. It's hard, maybe impossible, and a little scary. He can't quite grasp it, but it's like standing on the edge of a cliff and below him is nothing but the total darkness they saw when they had their lights off. He doesn't know how far it goes, but he knows it would swallow him up.
</p><p>He reaches out his hand and presses his palm against the cool stone of the wall. There's a sudden connection, not like the live-wire buzzy snap when he brushes up against the sun-warmed metal of the Impala, or the soothing, swift, swirling feeling when they've swum in lakes or rivers. 
</p><p>It's something deeper, down in his gut. The whole place feels at once solid and heavy to him, but also strangely resonant, like being inside a huge, steadily beating bass drum, or the chambers of a giant heart. Nothing he can actually hear or anything, it's silent outside of the noises they make and the occasional dripping of water. Just something he can feel down in his bones.
</p><p>It's <em>old</em>. 
</p><p>So, so old. Ancient. They're nothing more than brief sparks down here, gone in a flash, while the darkness just waits patiently.
</p><p>He shivers, and scurries to catch up to the pool of golden light surrounding Dean.
</p><p>The cave ends when the ground finally slopes up to meet the ceiling. There's still an arch there peeking out of the sand. Dean clambers over the rocks strewn about. Sam follows close behind him.
</p><p>"This must keep goin'." Dean sweeps his flashlight over the ceiling, pressing down where they're crouched. "Just all filled up with sand."
</p><p>"Makes sense. Lava must have come from pretty deep down." Sam shivers, imagining crawling forever through these tunnels, in the dark, miles and miles deeper under the ground.
</p><p>"How deep d'ya think it goes?" Dean pushes his flashlight under his chin, gives Sam a malevolent grin. "All the way to the center of the earth? Like Jules Verne or some shit?"
</p><p>Sam rolls his eyes and snickers, but quickly stops when Dean reaches out and starts scooping sand away from where it meets the ceiling, sending it spilling down the slope behind them. 
</p><p>"Dean!" He grabs at Dean's arm. "What're you <em>doing</em>?"
</p><p>Dean glances back at Sam with a huff, shakes off his grip. "Jus' wanna see if there's a wall behind this, or if it goes further."
</p><p>"<em>No</em>, Dean. No way." He tries to grab Dean's arm again, but Dean twists out of his hold. "I mean, like, what if you knock somethin' loose or something? An' like, all this sand comes rushing out, like, like...a big, silent wave, and we're buried underneath it down here? In the dark an' cold? An' no one could hear us and we'd suffocate an' get crushed an' freeze an' die all alone? And they'd never find us and eventually they'd forget all about us, an'...we'd just be...gone...jus' bones...jus' be, like, fossils deep in the rock after everyone else in the world is gone..." He trails off, hearing the endless, drawn-out <em>shhhshhhshhh</em> of grains of sand rushing over each other for thousands of years.
</p><p>Dean stops digging and is silent for a moment. He turns, slowly, and looks at Sam in the dim illumination from their flashlights. He doesn't look mocking or dismissive, like he'd expected. More concerned, maybe kind of disturbed.
</p><p>The look is quickly wiped off his face when he sees Sam looking back at him, though, and replaced with a smirk. "Man, sometimes I forget what a morbid little shit you are." He ruffles Sam's hair. "It's ok to be scared of the dark, Sammy. But, like, I'm not sure you should be writin' poetry about it an' stuff."
</p><p>"Shut up." Sam mumbles, flushing as he squirms away. "Not afraid of the dark. Jus' of you bein' an idiot."
</p><p>Dean laughs. "Well, y’better get over <em>that</em> fear real quick, or we'll never be able to go anywhere."
</p><p>"’Zactly." Sam pouts.
</p><p>Dean grins at him, pulls him under his arm, jostles him. "That's why I got you around, Sammy. You keep me from doin' shit that's <em>too</em> dumb, right?"
</p><p>"Someone's gotta."
</p><p>They scramble back down the sand ramp. When they get to the end, Dean waggles his eyebrows at Sam.
</p><p>"Race you back to the beginning?"
</p><p>Sam huffs, but doesn't hide his smile.
</p><p>They run into the group of adults about ten minutes into their journey back. There's a chorus of cheerful <em>hellos!</em> and <em>there's our brave adventurers,</em> and the boys grin back at them. 
</p><p>"So, what's at the end?" One of the guys asks them.
</p><p>Dean and Sam exchange glances.
</p><p>"A dragon. Of <em>course</em>."
</p><p>"With giant teeth."
</p><p>"And claws an' stuff, like, bigger than those stalactites, even."
</p><p>"Yeah, of course, Mike." The woman they'd talked to outside says, chiding. "<em>Everyone</em> knows that dragons live in the bottom of caves."
</p><p>"Of course, of course!" Mike holds his hands up in surrender. "Sorry, Gracie. Sorry, guys. I don't know how I forgot about dragons."
</p><p>"'S ok." Dean smirks. "They prob'ly forget about old men, too."
</p><p>Gracie laughs delightedly, along with a few of the others.
</p><p>"Fair enough." Mike agrees with a smile. "I just hope we don't surprise it and get roasted alive or anything."
</p><p>"Don't worry." Sam chimes in. "We took care of it for you guys."
</p><p>"Deader’n a doornail." Dean agrees.
</p><p>"I'm glad we sent our brave warriors ahead, then." Gracie nods at them gravely. "That was very wise of us. Thank you."
</p><p>"Of course, my lady." Dean freakin' bows, and Sam can tell Gracie, and the rest of them, are utterly charmed. Sam rolls his eyes.
</p><p>They turn and continue on. He shoves his elbow in Dean's side.
</p><p>"You're such a dork."
</p><p>Dean elbows him back. "Takes one to know one, shrimp."
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>.......
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>They get back to Flagstaff at noon. It's beautiful out, it’s just over 70 and sunny.
</p><p>Sam flops on their dad's bed once they get back to the room. "Man, that was the coolest thing ever."
</p><p>Dean beams at him. "Yeah, it wasn't bad."
</p><p>"Whatcha wanna do now?" Sam brushes his hands over his arms, sand gritting under his palms. He makes a face. "I gotta take a shower first, though."
</p><p>"I got a better idea."
</p><p>A ball of fabric hits Sam in the face. He sits up, gives Dean a dirty look, shakes out the wadded-up clothing. 
</p><p>"How 'bout a swim?"
</p><p>Sam looks down at the shorts in his hands, back at Dean. "...I dunno. Innit kinda cold out? Like, it was 50 or so when we got up this morning. All the pools an' stuff are gonna be freezing."
</p><p>"Not if it's indoors."
</p><p>Twenty minutes later, dressed in shorts and t-shirts, they stroll through the front door of the Super 8. <em>Act like you belong</em>, Dean has always told him. And Sam's learned that it works. The less shifty or nervous you act, the more people just accept that you're where you're supposed to be and don't pay attention to you.
</p><p>Not that it matters much. The bored girl at the front desk doesn't even lift her eyes from her <em>Sassy</em> magazine as they walk past. 
</p><p>Sam doesn't even wait. The moment Dean's got his t-shirt half over his head as he's standing by the pool, Sam runs up behind him and rams him with his shoulder, sending him right into the deep end.
</p><p>After some very dignified flailing and splashing, Dean surfaces, spluttering. He splashes water at Sam where he's doubled over, laughing. 
</p><p>"You little bitch!" Dean laughs.
</p><p>Sam shucks his shirt onto a chair and smirks.
</p><p>"Takes one to know one!" He runs and does a cannonball right next to Dean.
</p><p>After a couple of hours of splashing and floating and wrestling each other under the water, Sam announces that he's both <em>really hungry</em> and <em>really pruney</em>.
</p><p>"Whatever you say, birthday boy. Let's go get some grub."
</p><p>The breeze makes it a little chilly on the walk back, especially for Dean, whose shirt is still a bit damp. But at least it's only a few blocks away, and the early afternoon sun feels good on their bare legs and arms
</p><p>Sam's practically drooling by the time they get to the room, thinking about the rest of his muffin, not to mention the strawberry-banana yogurt he hasn't even dug into yet. Maybe they can go grab a couple of Sunkists from the soda machine, too.
</p><p>Sam's torn between getting out of his cold, wet clothes and beelining right for the fridge. Dean catches where he's looking and puts a hand out in front of him.
</p><p>"Nope, get changed into somethin' dry."
</p><p>"Aw. Dean. My stomach's gonna eat itself."
</p><p>"That's why we're gonna go out and get dinner, dumbass."
</p><p>"We got food here, though."
</p><p>"Sammy." Dean levels him with a look. "What kinda birthday dinner is a half-eaten, stale muffin and some damn fruit."
</p><p>Sam shrugs while he shuffles through their dry clothes, feeling a little ashamed for some reason he can’t quite figure out. "I dunno. 'S better than what we had last year."
</p><p>Sam doesn't like the kinda sad look that flits across Dean's face right then. It's gone as quickly as it appeared, though. 
</p><p>"Well, that's why I'm pickin' where we eat today. Any little brother of mine gets only the best for his big day."
</p><p>Sam wonders how Dean always seems to have the ability to make him blush like this, a warm feeling spreading through his stomach. He pulls his jeans, on, the ones with the least amount of rips in them.
</p><p>"Ok, Dean. Sounds awesome."
</p><p>He’s excited, but not at all surprised, when they head directly across the street. They’d both been eyeing the Galaxy Diner with envy since the day they arrived at Saga Motel. 
</p><p>It just looks so cool, all red and white and chrome, with it’s huge, ornate neon sign right out of a 1950s pulp magazine. The parking lot was full of shiny old classic cars on Saturday, that both Dean and John had drooled over. Dean and Sam have watched from the parking lot on the evenings over the weekend as couples, some in skirts that flare out around their knees and two-tone shoes and rolled-up pants, danced, flinging each other around, somehow both graceful and frenetic. <em>Swing dancing</em>, Dad had said it was called, with a smile. And way before his time, <em>so no comments from the peanut gallery</em>.
</p><p>It’s not like they haven’t eaten in diners before, not as if they don’t eat in them all the time, as a matter of fact. It’s just...not diners like this. Places for people with money, that sell nostalgia and an experience along with the food.
</p><p>The diners they frequent are the practical, convenient kind. The ones attached to truck stops, or the tiny fading ones in the center of tiny fading towns. And they’re not all bad—some of them are even pretty good—it’s just that they’re the kinds of places that tend to have peeling paint on the outside, and a layer of grease on the inside. Ripped booth covers or hard, scratched laminate seats. Plates and glasses might be chipped a little. Bathrooms not quite always gross, but too old to get really clean. 
</p><p>And the food is filling, and greasy, and salty. Usually there’s only a handful of things on the menu that are actually good, or just decent, but it’s a crapshoot to figure which ones they might be at any given place.
</p><p>Dean loves them all. Always gets a burger; fries if they’re included. A slice of pie if Dad feels like spoiling them. Always seems to be happy with his meals, a smile on his face and his eyes half-lidded as he chews, crumbs making a break for it from his half-open mouth.
</p><p>Sam finds it kind of disgusting, kind of endearing. Like, he wishes Dean would learn to close his mouth all the way, or swallow before he talks, but...Dean’s happy in those little moments. Enjoying something; content, belly satisfied. He knows Dean feels a similar kind of satisfaction when he can feed Sam till he’s full and not just take the edge off the hunger. Even though Sam’s not the one taking care of Dean, not the one making sure he gets fed, he likes seeing Dean like that, so keeps his comments to huffy teasing, grossed out faces. Just enough for Dean to get some extra enjoyment out of offending Sam’s <em>delicate sensibilities</em>, but never enough to actually make him feel bad for his habits.
</p><p>Their dad, he eats like a machine most of the time. Food is fuel, just calories in, to keep him moving and hunting. He’s got a few preferences, of course, but seems to be fine with just about anything available. Like Dean, nothing ever seems to make him sick or uncomfortable when he eats, no matter how questionable it is. He chews through food like he chews through highways or monsters or friends. Utilitarian, practical, driven. Eyes already on to the next thing to take down before he’s even done with what he’s doing now.
</p><p>Sam...it’s not like Sam doesn’t like the taste of a lot of greasy foods, sugary treats. But he finds more and more that he doesn’t feel great if he eats too much of them. Not always, but enough to make him regret it. He feels heavy, leaden. Stomach churns. He has to ask their dad to stop more at rest stops, which usually annoys John and shortens his temper. Sometimes he finds himself puking after a particularly objectionable  meal, which he hates, and tries to do as discreetly as possible. He doesn’t want his dad or brother to think he’s doing it on purpose, wasting food. 
</p><p>He still gets milkshakes when he can, they’re pretty safe, and he’s got a weak spot for ice cream. Though he usually ends up giving Dean the half he always has left over. A lot of the time he sticks to chicken strips or turkey sandwiches. Spaghetti if the sauce doesn’t look like ketchup. Gets applesauce, fruit; veggies if they don’t look like they come from a can (‘cause he gets those at home, so why bother?). Dean teases him, but it’s not as if Sam doesn’t know that the other kind of stuff on the menu usually tastes better. It’s just that he’s not like Dean and his Dad. Can’t just eat like a normal person, and prefers not to deal with feeling rotten when he does.
</p><p>But he pushes all that aside when they walk in. The inside is even better than he’d hoped. A long, chrome-clad diner with shiny stools with bright red seats. A cool checkered red and black and white diamond pattern on the tiled floor. Lots of neon reflecting off the ceiling.
</p><p>The bubbly-but-not-grating waitress, Chelsea, seats them at a booth near the front window. Her shiny black ponytail bounces on top of her head as they follow her. Dean makes sure to casually mention that Sam’s turning six today, and she beams at him and wishes him a happy birthday, making him blush and stammer <em>thank you</em>.
</p><p>Sam turns through the brightly colored, shiny menu with big eyes. There’s so many options, and they all look really good.
</p><p>“Whatcha gonna get, Sammy?”
</p><p>“I...I dunno, Dean. I can’t decide.” He’d just noticed the prices, with a sinking feeling.
</p><p>Dean looks at him sharply. “You get anything you want, Sam. Anything. I <em>mean</em> it; on the whole menu.” He pauses, smirks. “Except for the kids’ menu. You’re not allowed to order from there; you ain’t a kid anymore.”
</p><p>Sam gives him a little smile; feels brave. “Bullshit.”
</p><p>Dean laughs with delight. He always seems so proud when Sam curses.
</p><p>“Menu says up to ten. I’m only six.”
</p><p>“The menu doesn’t know what the hell it’s talking about. Maybe most kids your age are...kids. But you aint most kids. You’re a Winchester.” He puts his nose in the air haughtily. “That’s like, double the maturity right there. And you were born a little old man, anyways.”
</p><p>Sam purses his lips, then sticks his tongue out and crosses his eyes at his brother.
</p><p>“Doesn’t change my mind, you little shit.” Dean laughs. “Big boy menu only today.”
</p><p>They grin at each other, and Sam goes back to his impossible task of making a decision.
</p><p>“Oh, wow…”
</p><p>“Whassat?”
</p><p>Sam looks at the menu with awe. “Did’ya see the last page?? They have <em>a hundred flavors of milkshakes</em>.”
</p><p>“I did.” Dean looks smug. “But after dinner only, so you better make up your mind what you want.”
</p><p>Sam rolls his eyes. “Ok, <em>Mom</em>.”
</p><p>In the end, Sam decides on Chicken Parmesan, and feels vindicated when it’s placed in front of him. It’s delicious; breaded and pan-fried but not oily, just the right amount of real parmesan cheese melted on top, the sauce has chunks of tomatoes and is full of garlic and red pepper. The pasta underneath isn’t even a tiny bit mushy.
</p><p>Dean looks just as enraptured with his bacon burger, a little bit of juice running down his chin as he licks a glob of sharp cheddar cheese off his lip. Sam doesn’t even try to act like it bothers him, just nabs a few fries from his plate. Dean doesn’t even try to act like he cares that Sam stole his food.
</p><p>When Chelsea comes back to collect Dean’s empty plate, and Sam’s three-quarters-empty one, she gives them both a knowing smile; winks a cornflower blue eye.
</p><p>“Now, I know you boys have room for ice cream.”
</p><p>“Always.” Dean grins at her.
</p><p>‘You need a few minutes to choose? We got a lot of flavors.”
</p><p>“Sammy, you need time to decide?”
</p><p>“Nope.” Sam knew what he was getting before he even picked out his meal. He smiles up at Chelsea. “I’ll have a strawberry cheesecake milkshake, please.”
</p><p>She leans down a bit and half-whispers to him. “That’s my favorite, too. And yours is on us, since you’re the birthday boy.”
</p><p>Dean gets a chocolate butterfinger malt, because of course he does.
</p><p>When Chelsea brings the milkshake out, there’s a single candle stuck in the top of whipped cream and pie crust crumbs. Four or five other employees walk out with her, and Sam doesn’t think he’s ever blushed so hard as when they all sing <em>Happy Birthday</em> to him, Dean joining in, deliberately off-key.
</p><p>Sam has to hide his face in his hands for a second when a few tables around them clap afterwards. This is ridiculous. When does this even happen in real life? Still, he makes sure to lift his head before the staff leaves and stutter out a flustered <em>thank you</em>.
</p><p>He finds he’s not even surprised when he hears the slurping burble of air as he sucks the last drops from his glass. Dean just beams at him.
</p><p>As they walk back to the motel, the light just starting to dim and grey into evening, Sam looks over at Dean’s profile and feels a surge of something overwhelming. He knows he loves his brother, even if they aren’t really supposed to say it, but this feels bigger, more fundamental.
</p><p>“This has been the best birthday ever, Dean. Like, the best one <em>anyone</em> ever had.” Dean looks over, Sam smiles at him. “Thank you.”
</p><p>Dean smiles back; easy, affectionate. “It ain’t even over yet, Sammy.”
</p><p>Sam stops in the middle of the road, looking at Dean with his mouth hanging open. What else could they <em>possibly</em> do after a day like today? He’s starting to feel a little insecure. This is more than he would ever ask for. More than he deserves for sure. He’s pretty sure even normal kids don’t get spoiled this much on their birthday.
</p><p>But, then again, he’s got to spend the whole day doing all this amazing stuff with Dean. A happy, satisfied Dean. He’ll never look that gift horse in the mouth.
</p><p>He puts on a burst of speed, catching up with his brother as the streetlights start to flicker on around them.
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>.......
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>The final surprise (<em>yes, Sammy, really only goin’ one more place</em>) ends up being about a mile’s walk from the motel, cutting through the complex behind them and then walking some foot-trodden trails, through the trees up the base of the big hill at the edge of the city. It’s not a big deal for either of them. They’re used to walking more than that, even, both when their father takes them on ‘conditioning hikes’ and when they’re stuck in towns with no real public transportation.
</p><p>When they get there, though...Sam can’t believe Dean took him to an <em>observatory</em>. Dean loves laying out on the hood at night pointing out constellations just as much as Sam, but he always makes fun of him for getting excited over books about space or begging to leave on Cosmos or other ‘nerdy’ documentaries.
</p><p>But here they are, just in time for the last tour through Lowell Observatory. They get to see the telescopes, a small satellite on display, a huge chunk of meteorite. All kinds of exotic things that have Sam buzzing with excitement. 
</p><p>After that, it gets even better, because the planetarium has a show on the mythology and the ancient history of astrology. Both of them watch with delight, necks craned upwards, as the constellations light up on the domed ceiling and are overlaid with images of gods and heroes as they’re told tales from around the world..
</p><p>When it’s over, Sam starts to get up from his seat almost regretfully. Dean puts his hand on his arm, pulls him back down. 
</p><p>“No, dude. S’not time to go yet. We got tickets to both shows tonight.”
</p><p>“Oh, cool!” Sam bounces back down next to Dean. It’s only quarter till nine, and Sam’s not the least bit tired despite everything they’ve done today. “What’s the next show about?”
</p><p>“Well…” Dean rubs the back of his neck. “It’s a…ldszplnlasrltshh.” and Sam doesn’t pick up what he says, voice too low to carry over the noise of everyone moving around them.
</p><p>“What?”
</p><p>Dean sighs, drops his head back. “...It’s a Led Zeppelin laser light show, ok?”
</p><p>“Ok? That sounds badass!” Sam enthuses. “Um...what’sa laser light show?”
</p><p>Dean looks over at him, grins. “Oh, man, Sammy. You’re gonna <em>love</em> this.”
</p><p>Sam does love it, the loud, throbbing music, the crazy (<em>trippy</em>, Dean says) images and designs swirling across the ceiling above them. It’s definitely not like anything Sam’s ever experienced before; it’s <em>cool</em>, and Sam’s having a blast.
</p><p>But the thing he likes most about it is sneaking glances over at Dean’s rapturous grin, the multicolored lights reflecting in his eyes, the way his feet and fingers tap in time to the music. There’s no doubt that this part of the day was really for Dean. Somehow, that takes all his doubts away, makes it ok to accept everything they did for <em>Sam</em> today.
</p><p>An hour-and-a-half later Sam’s laughing, ears ringing a little as Dean belts out <em>lonely lonely lonely lonely time</em> at him as they stumble out the door into the cold night air.
</p><p>Sam couldn’t stop smiling if he tried. He patiently lets Dean get his hoodie out of the backpack he’s carrying, slide it over his shoulders like he’s still three. He waits to make sure Dean gets his on, too. It gets cold quick here in the desert hills at night.
</p><p>Dean trundles him off, away from the lights of the observatory, back to the trails worn in the sandy dirt. When he turns right instead of left, though, Sam halts and looks at him in confusion. 
</p><p>“Hey, Dean, y’r goin’ the wrong way.”
</p><p>“Nah.” Dean beckons him to follow. “Got somethin’ we gotta do. C’mon, follow me.”
</p><p>Sam trots over to follow Dean. Shivers a little. Despite his sweatshirt, it’s still pretty cold. Dean pulls him over, tucks him under his arm as they walk under the tiny sliver of silver moon.
</p><p>They walk for about ten or fifteen minutes. Far enough so that the observatory can’t be seen from the small clearing in the sparse trees where they’re standing. 
</p><p>Dean opens his backpack. Takes out a wool blanket, spreads it out on the ground. Kneels down and starts taking things out of the bag, placing them on the blanket, carefully.
</p><p>A small electric lantern, which he switches on. An old, small tupperware bowl, filled with something dark and viscous. Two candles, the off-brand scented kind in little glass containers. A box of matches. A small composition notebook. A little portable tape player, like a walkman, with a tiny built-in speaker on the front.
</p><p>A paintbrush.
</p><p>“...Dean?” 
</p><p>“What’s up, Sammy?” Dean doesn’t look up from where he’s arranging the items on the blanket.
</p><p>“What...what is this?”
</p><p>Dean looks up at him, but doesn’t stop what he’s doing, pulling out one of their spare flasks. “What do y’think it is?”
</p><p>Sam swallows. Blinks, because suddenly, his eyes are full of tears. 
</p><p>“We...we can’t do this.”
</p><p>It tears open something in his chest to even say it, but he knows he’s right. They <em>can’t</em> do this; the ritual’s not for Sam. Even if it would somehow work for him when he’s not first-born, he’s not going to take chances like that with Dean; that he might strip Dean of its protection and gifts. 
</p><p>Dad’s taken Dean out on a couple of ‘<em>safe</em>’ hunts in the past year. Just a couple of simple hauntings, and once to relocate a distressed canotila that had been trapped in a small patch of woods by a new housing development. But Sam knows it won’t be long until he starts taking him on more dangerous hunts. 
</p><p>Deadly hunts.
</p><p>Sam needs Dean alive. Needs him to be ok. He’s not gonna let Dean risk that just to make Sam feel included. Not gonna throw all that away for some ink on his skin. No way.
</p><p>Dean’s hands still, and he puts the bottle down, turns towards Sam.
</p><p>“Why not?”
</p><p>“Why not?? Wha—Dean, if I do the ritual, it could ruin everything for you.” He shakes his head; confused, kinda angry. “‘S not worth it. <em>I’m</em> not worth it.”
</p><p>Dean takes a deep breath. Sam can tell he’s kinda pissed off, too. 
</p><p>“First of all, don’t say that. Don’t ever say that. You’re worth what I say you’re worth; don’ care what anybody else thinks. Not even you.” 
</p><p>Sam bites the inside of his cheek to keep from arguing back; feels a few angry tears slip out. He knows Dean won’t appreciate it. But he can just be so <em>dumb</em> sometimes. Especially when it comes to Sam.
</p><p>“Anyways, this isn’t Mom’s ritual, so it doesn’t matter anyways.”
</p><p>“...oh.” Sam fidgets as Dean, rather deliberately, goes back to rearranging things on the blanket. “What is it, then?”
</p><p>“This is <em>our</em> ritual.”
</p><p>“Oh.” Sam blinks, because somehow there’s a bunch of tears pressing against the backs of his eyes again. “Oh, wow.”
</p><p>Dean smiles, pats the blanket across from where he’s kneeling. “C’mere, Sammy.”
</p><p>Sam settles down cross-legged. “Where’d y’get the ritual from?”
</p><p>“I didn’t.” Dean shrugs. “I figured we would make our own. One that’s about <em>us</em>. I figure nothin’ I could find in a book’s gonna be as good as what the two of us can do together.”
</p><p>Sam just stares at Dean, that overwhelming feeling of devotion and awe sweeping over him again. Dean catches the look on his face and chuckles.
</p><p>“Stop bein’ so sappy, Sammy.”
</p><p>“I’m not sappy! <em>You’re</em>...sappy...”
</p><p>Dean laughs again and Sam sticks his tongue out at him.
</p><p>“So, um, what’re you thinkin’ we should do?”
</p><p>“I dunno.” Dean scratches the back of his neck. “ I figure we can use some of the stuff in Mom’s ritual, just make it different. Y’know. Ours.”
</p><p>“Ok. So, like, two candles instead of three.”
</p><p>“Yep. I was thinkin’, um, each of them could represent one of us?”
</p><p>“Ok...yeah. Yeah.”
</p><p>Sam looks more closely at the candles. One is a deep, dark blue; black in the desert night. The other’s a light orangey yellow. Dean reaches out, his hand automatically going for the light candle, before hesitating, glancing at Sam, and reaching over towards the dark one.
</p><p>“No, you’re right.” Sam says, calmly. He picks up both candles, hands the golden one to Dean, places the dark one in front of himself. “That’s you, and this is me.”
</p><p>“Are you sayin’ I’m the pretty one, Sammy?”
</p><p>“No, it’s just you’re the one who smells like daffodils. I smell like…” He lifts the candle, takes a deep sniff. “Like amber, an’…” Another sniff. “Sandalwood.”
</p><p>“Hey! I don’t smell like daffodils! I smell like…” He takes a sniff of his own candle. “...honeysuckle. Dammit.”
</p><p>Sam’s laughter rings through him. “Sounds ‘bout right.”
</p><p>“Shut it, squirt.” There’s no heat in Dean’s retort. “I didn’t know what the right kind of oil Dad uses, an’ I figure it probably wasn’t Wesson, so I brought some holy water instead.”
</p><p>He holds the flask up and shakes it. Sam claps his hands together.
</p><p>“Oh, is that the blue flask??”
</p><p>“Yeah, with the silver cap.”
</p><p>“That’s even <em>better</em> than holy water; ‘s from the Potrero Ditch!”
</p><p>“...a ditch. Really, Sammy?”
</p><p>“That little river behind the Shrine at Chimayo!” Dean just looks at the flask skeptically..”..c’mon, Dean, the place we stopped at on our way here, near Santa Fe.”
</p><p>“Oh. The place with the <em>magic dirt</em>.”
</p><p>Sam huffs. “Don’ be a jerk. The dirt’s maybe not real, but that place was really...beautiful. Like, it felt...holy.”
</p><p>“Holy, huh? All you did was lie on a bench and stare up at the trees.”
</p><p>“...trees can be holy.” 
</p><p>“Sure, if you’re, like, a druid.” Dean laughs. “Don’t pout, Sammy! You worship all the damn trees you want. I’ll still support you when you’re an Ent.”
</p><p>“Whatever...anyways, Dad blessed it when you were at school. So it’ll work even if <em>you’re,</em> like, a heathen.”
</p><p>“Works for me.” Dean flips open the little notebook. “I copied a bunch of sigils and different blessings from some of Dad’s books. Not sure which ones we should use though.”
</p><p>As Dean studies his notes, Sam chews on his lip. “I think…”
</p><p>Dean looks up at him intently, waiting for him to continue. “...whaddya think, Sammy?”
</p><p>Sam shakes his head, embarrassed. “Nah, it was a stupid idea…”
</p><p>“Bet you it wasn’t.” He put the notebook down. “Come on, tell me.”
</p><p>“Well, it’sa couple of things, really. For, um, the blessing, I dunno if we should use some stuffy, old religious thing, y’know? That’s not really <em>us</em>.”
</p><p>“Sure as hell ain’t.”
</p><p>“We got like...no connection to it. Like, maybe we should pick somethin’ that means something to us. Something new, not old. Like, in english, too.”
</p><p>“What, like poetry? I dunno ‘bout that…”
</p><p>“I was thinkin’, um, song lyrics. Maybe?” He shrugs again, looks down. “I dunno. It was stupid.”
</p><p>“...no. No, that’s not stupid. That’s kinda...perfect.”
</p><p>“...yeah?”
</p><p>“Yeah, Sammy. Totally perfect.” He hums. “Now we just gotta figure out which ones…”
</p><p>The both sit, thinking, for a minute. Then Dean smiles.
</p><p>“Asking nothing, leave me be—“
</p><p>“Dean.”
</p><p>“Don’t need reason, don’t need rhyme—“
</p><p>“<em>Dean</em>.”
</p><p>Dean breaks out singing; thrashing head, air guitar and all. “<em>I’m on the hiiiighway to hell! Highway to hell!”</em>
</p><p>“Dean!” Sam’s laughing now, can’t help it. “No AC/DC, idiot!”
</p><p>Dean sighs as if deeply disappointed. “Ah, well. I guess I failed when it comes to your taste in music at least.”
</p><p>Sam throws the box of matches at him. Dean catches, grinning.
</p><p>“You got any better ideas?”
</p><p>“Um, maybe. How ‘bout...” Sam licks his lips, nervous for some reason. Maybe Dean will think this is too close to poetry, or something. Will think Sam’s being <em>sappy</em>. “Over the mountain, watching the watcher…”
</p><p>“Ooh, Pink Floyd. Good call, Sammy. All, like, mysterious and shit…” He sits, quiet for another minute. “Yeah. Yeah...ok. I can go with that one. <em>Heart of the Sun</em>, a classic. Just that lyric, right?”
</p><p>“I guess...what d’you think?”
</p><p>“Yeah. ‘S perfect.”
</p><p>Sam beams at him. Dean’s look is a little softer and gooier than normal, maybe.
</p><p>“What about the sigils?” Dean asks.
</p><p>“I guess...maybe we both pick one we like, and then we...make one’a our own?”
</p><p>“Huh. You think that will work? A made up symbol?”
</p><p>“Sure. Maybe. Bobby says that most magic is jus’ intent, an’ like, belief, anyways. Old stuff’s just got, like, centuries of belief, so it’s easier to use. Or somethin’ like that.”
</p><p>“Ok.” Dean ponders. “And this is just us, so, like, we don’t need anybody else to believe. Just each other. Right?”
</p><p>“...right.” Sam looks down, a little overwhelmed again. Points at the notebook. ”We should draw them there. Gonna start at midnight?”
</p><p>“Yeah, that’s what I was thinkin’.” He picks up the notebook. “Just the three sigils, then?”
</p><p>“Yeah, I mean, I don’t think havin’ more will make it more...special, or anything. Y’know?”
</p><p>“Yeah. Just enough. One for you, one for me. One for us together.”
</p><p>“Yeah.”
</p><p>Dean looks at the blank page for only a second, then starts drawing with the pen with no hesitation. When he’s done, he looks at what he’s drawn with his head tilted to the side. 
</p><p>“Huh. I thought it was gonna be hard to pick one, but...it’s like that one was <em>right</em>. No questions.”
</p><p>Sam nods,  takes the notebook, and doesn’t even wait a second before he starts drawing. He knew which one from the moment Dean said they were making their own ritual.
</p><p>He passes it back to Dean, who takes it and nods. “Yeah...ok. Now just to come up with one of our own. Uh, how should we do this?”
</p><p>Sam gets up,  comes over and kneels down next to Dean. He reaches over, takes the hand that’s holding the pen, and wraps his much smaller hand around it, interlacing their fingers so they are both touching the pen in alternating spots. 
</p><p>He guides their hands over to the paper, brings the pen down, and then just...lets go.
</p><p>Not of the pen, just of any kind of control or intention. He feels Dean’s fingers relax, too, and, at that moment, the pen starts moving. Sam feels something he can’t put a name to flow through him; something that seems to flow from Dean, through him, then back, like a loop. The pen glides. A swoop, arcing up like the crescent moon. A curl, an angle into a line, another line bisecting. Without any hesitation or stutter, the pen just moves of its own accord, at least it seems like it.
</p><p>The pen stops.
</p><p>The woods around them are silent. Sam just hears, feels, their breaths, the beat of their hearts, the humming of the energy filling them. Synched up in the quiet of the desert.
</p><p>“...wow.” Dean breathes out. “Cool.”
</p><p>A little self-consciously, they lift the pen and disentangle their hands. Sam brings his up to his chest without thinking about it. 
</p><p>They both look down at the paper. The symbol that lies there seems almost familiar, though Sam’s sure he’s never seen it before. Or anything that looks quite like it.
</p><p>“That’s it, then.”
</p><p>“Yeah.” Sam agrees.
</p><p>“Ok, we got like, ten minutes.” Dean’s glancing at his watch. “Get over on your side of the blanket. Dork.”
</p><p>“‘K.” Sam scrambles over to the other side. “Oh, wait! Did ya bring salt?”
</p><p>“Always got salt, Sammy. ‘M like a boyscout. Crossed with Ven Helsing.”  
</p><p>He digs in a pocket of the backpack, throws a ziplock to Sam. Sam gets up, starts pouring a circle on the perimeter of the blanket.
</p><p>“You think there might be ghosts out here?” Dean asks, serious.
</p><p>“I mean, could be.” Sam finishes the circuit, sits back down, handing the remainder of the salt to Dean. “But I think it’s more jus’ like...general protection, maybe? Magic stuff makes things pay attention. Sometimes bad things, that y’might not like, notice you. I guess.”
</p><p>“Bobby teach y’that,  too? He’s like...supernatural Mr. Miyagi or something’.”
</p><p>“Yeah, he must’ve.” Sam’s really not sure where he heard that. Probably Bobby.
</p><p>“Oh, wait!” Dean reaches over, grabs the tape player. “Can’t forget the <em>ambience</em>.”
</p><p>Dean presses the play button, and the opening notes of <em>Roundabout </em> start playing softly.
</p><p>“Y’ready?”
</p><p>“Yeah...you?”
</p><p>“Always.” Dean looks around; opens the lid of the ink container, switches off the lantern. Dean gestures at him, and they both pull their shirts off and set them aside. They can only see each other glowing pale in the dim light of the moon and the stars. “How should we start?”
</p><p>Sam moves forward a little bit, motions for Dean to do the same. Picks up the matches.
</p><p>“Um...since this is diff’rent than the other ritual, maybe we should do it together? Instead‘a just me?”
</p><p>“Whaddya mean?”
</p><p>“Like...I light your candle, you light mine. Bless the ink and each other together. Then, like, I draw my symbol on you, and you do yours on me. And then the new one on both of us.”
</p><p>“Huh.” Dean considers this. “You’re really good at this shit. Y’gonna be a wizard when you grow up, Sammy?”
</p><p>“Shuddup.”
</p><p>“Just kiddin’. Don’t think there are any real wizards or anything. But, really, though. All the ritual stuff...you’re, like...I dunno. You’re like a natural, or somethin’. No lie.”
</p><p>“Thanks.” Sam smiles shyly. Sam lights one of the matches, then Dean does the same. They reach over and light the candles in front of each other at the same time.
</p><p>Dean moves the bowl of ink to the center, between them. Picks up the flask, opens it. Looks at it. Holds it out to Sam. He reaches over and takes it gingerly;  puts his hand on the back of Dean’s neck and gently pulls his head forward. He tips the flask over the crown of Dean’s head.
</p><p>“...oops.”
</p><p>Dean splutters, wiping his eyes as he lifts his head. “I needed a shower anyways.”
</p><p>He reaches out, Sam passes him the flask. Dean’s hand is warm on the back of his neck. Sam feels a trickle of water over his scalp, which stops. Then, a second later,  there’s a glug as the rest of it streams through his hair and down his face.
</p><p>“Dean!” But he’s laughing, and somehow everything feels brighter, and more...<em>them</em>.
</p><p>“So sorry.” Dean smirks.
</p><p>“No y’r not.” Sam grins back. “Gimme your hand.”
</p><p>Dean slips his right hand into Sam’s left, and they hold them over the bowl. They look up at each other and, in sync, start reciting the stanza that they’d picked.
</p><p>“...one inch of love is one inch of shadow, love is the shadow that ripens the wine.”
</p><p>Normally Sam would be blushing, and Dean would be cracking a joke. Instead, Dean just picks up the paintbrush and hands it to Sam. Sam dips the paintbrush in the plastic bowl, reverently.
</p><p>He feels something then, a warmth, and a humming, a vibration. It starts in his fingertips, slowly winds its way up his arm, twines its way around his spine.
</p><p>When he looks up at Dean his mouth falls open, just a little.
</p><p>There’s a light around him. Sam can only kind of see it out of the corner of his eyes, not if he looks directly at it. But he can see that it’s bright, laced with streaks of red, but mostly golden yellow. Like the ring Dean wears on his finger. Like the sun.
</p><p>Dean looks at him curiously, but doesn’t say anything. Sam brings the brush up, takes a breath, touches it to Dean’s forehead.
</p><p>It’s like a rubber band snapping shut. Like magnets connecting after having been forced apart. It feels like the air itself must have resonated between the two of them with the force of it.
</p><p>He blinks, looks down at Dean’s expression. He can see that Dean definitely felt <em>something</em>, looks surprised, though not as shocked as Sam feels.
</p><p>He shakes off the extraneous thoughts, turns his attention back to his task. The brush circles through the lines of his sigil, almost as if pulled by a string. The black ink seems to almost sink into Dean’s freckled skin, before slowly kindling to a shining golden glow. When it’s complete, it brightens, like he expected. Except, unlike the ritual Dean does with Dad, it doesn’t fade at all.
</p><p>Trembling a little, Sam places the brush in Dean’s open hand. Kneels back on his heels. Dean fills his vision as the brush is raised to Sam’s face.
</p><p>It feels amazing. Like dipping your feet into a crystal-cold stream on a hot day, or those rare times when Dad will still let Sam curl up next to him, run his fingers through his hair, hum as he reads through old books. The feeling curls back from his forehead, feels like a wave crashing through his skull, leaving his mind washed clean and radiant. 
</p><p>As Dean stops, pulls the brush away, Sam catches something out of the corner of his eye again. This time, though, it’s him. His body, his hands. He lifts one up, turning it over as he tries to unfocus his vision, but he still only gets glimpses.
</p><p>It’s light—but it’s dark, a deep color somewhere between blue and purple. It also pulses, not streaks or swirls like Dean’s red, but other colors almost bubble up, spread out before blending back in. Mostly blue, purple. Little blips of pink. Which he will definitely never tell Dean. He catches, underneath it all, small currents of something darker, almost black, but they disappear before he can see them clearly.
</p><p>He wonders what it all means.
</p><p>Dean takes his hand and turns it back over, pressing the brush into it.
</p><p>This time it’s over the heart. 
</p><p>Sam seems to disappear, kind of, as he draws. There’s just the brush, Dean’s skin, the energy. The cold night air, scent of juniper and sage and sandalwood and sweet flowers. The quiet music, the cicadas singing.
</p><p>The sigil.
</p><p>He comes back to see both symbols glowing gold. Dean looking at him with an unsolvable expression. He has to pull the brush from Sam’s hand. Gently though.
</p><p>Sam feels something equally unsolvable as the ink is laid over his chest. He doesn’t know where he ends, and Dean begins. Where he begins, or Dean ends.
</p><p>When Dean lifts the brush, Sam gasps. He’s surprised, later, when he thinks back on it, that he didn’t fall over. There’s a ringing feeling—like the world, the universe— is a giant bell. But there’s no actual sound. 
</p><p>And it feels like he’s been struck by lightning, crackling over the surface of his body, alive and electric. Like his skin must be a blackened crisp now. Like maybe he’ll never be able to use his arms and legs again. 
</p><p>But it’s not unbearable; it feels <em>good</em>. Really good.
</p><p>He watches as the symbols on Dean’s skin turn luminescent, a burning golden yellow and orange, almost like fire, flames. From above his eyes, he can see the edge of the glow of purple light. He looks down. On his own chest, the symbol blazes just as brightly as it does on Dean’s, in Sam’s own spectrum, with a crackle of silver sparks. 
</p><p>He looks up and meets Dean’s own wide eyes.
</p><p>The ringing fades. Slowly, in waves, the rest of the world filters back in. The light dims as slowly, until the lines are merely ink again.
</p><p>Dean blinks, places the brush carefully in the bowl. “What...what was <em>that</em>?”
</p><p>“You saw it?” Sam holds his breath. Maybe he’s not crazy, after all.
</p><p>“...saw? No. Didn’t see nothin’. But I definitely <em>felt</em> somethin’.”
</p><p>“...like everything...ringing, really strong? Everywhere? Like, inside and out? And...lightning?”
</p><p>Dean’s gaze turns inward, contemplative. “Not exactly...I mean, there was like...a little explosion kind of feelin’ at the end. But I don’t know if it was as strong as that for me.” He looks up at Sam. “But...when I do Mom’s ritual, there’s this...tingly, warm feeling. Mostly where the ink is. Not real crazy, but it’s there. This was…”
</p><p>He shakes his head. “Like my whole body was vibrating. Humming. Like, more than warm, too—like I was on fire. But it didn’t hurt at all…”
</p><p>“...’s more than the other ritual?”
</p><p>“Doesn’t even compare. Like, that’s ten percent of this. Maybe not even that much. I’ve always loved that feelin’ but this...this was somethin’ else. Somethin’ amazing.”
</p><p>Sam smiles. He knows he shouldn’t feel happy that Dean’s connection to him is stronger than to his mom. He really shouldn’t. But it makes him feel good to know that—even if Dean’s experience doesn’t seem as overwhelming as Sam’s—it was still intense and real and undeniable. That, as much as he’s always been Dean’s, maybe Dean’s also <em>his</em>. 
</p><p>Maybe that makes him a bad person. Selfish and greedy and possessive. But right now, he doesn’t care at all.
</p><p>“Was like lightnin’ for me. All over, through my body. Like bein’ electrocuted.”
</p><p>Dean frowns. “...sounds like it hurt.”
</p><p>“No, it didn’t. Felt pretty cool. Good, kinda.”
</p><p>Dean relaxes, nods. “Ok.”
</p><p>He starts cleaning things up, and Sam shakes himself out of his thoughts, pitches in. 
</p><p>When everything’s been packed away for the most part, Dean pulls out a second blanket. He lays back and pats the space next to him. Sam lays down, and Dean pulls the other blanket over both of them. Sam wriggles down under it, wriggling into Dean’s side as he does. Dean lets Sam rest his head on the crook of his shoulder, wraps his arm around him.
</p><p>They both look up at the stars.
</p><p>“What’d you see, Sammy?” Dean’s voice is hushed, calm.
</p><p>Sam freezes, for just a moment. He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to tell Dean, he really does...but what if it freaks Dean out? Makes him scared or worried or something? What if he thinks something’s wrong with Sam?
</p><p>What if he tells Dad?
</p><p>“You can tell me. I won’ be mad, or weirded out, or whatever you’re thinking.”
</p><p>“You…you promise you won’t tell Dad?”
</p><p>“Promise. Cross my heart.”
</p><p>“‘K…” He swallows. “It’s...light. I see light.”
</p><p>“Light? What kinda light? Where?”
</p><p>And Dean doesn’t sound freaked out, or mad. Just curious. Maybe a little...awed?
</p><p>“At first, when you’d do Mom’s ritual, just where the sigils are. They glow. Light up all gold. Each one when it’s done. Then all of them, brighter, at th’ end.”
</p><p>He feels Dean’s head shift, looking over at Sam. “Always? I mean, you see that every time?”
</p><p>“Every time, since I c'n remember.”
</p><p>There’s silence for a moment, but not a bad one. 
</p><p>“I can feel ya thinkin’ over there.”
</p><p>Dean chuckles. “No...jus’ explains a lot, is all.” He brings his hand up, absently strokes through Sam’s hair. “What about this time? You seemed...surprised.”
</p><p>“Well...I did see the same thing. Kinda. It was much brighter, like fire almost. And it didn’t fade in between.” He hesitates. “...an’ I saw...I saw light around you, kinda. Over, through you, like you were glowin’.”
</p><p>“I was glowing?”
</p><p>“Kinda. It was like...I couldn’t see it completely, y’know? It’s like, when you see somethin’ outta the corner of your eye, but when you turn to look right at it, it’s gone. Kinda like that.”
</p><p>“...huh.”
</p><p>“You were all yellow light. Kinda orange at th’ edges.” Sam offers. “An’ like, red threads all through everythin’.”
</p><p>“Hm, I guess I am the pretty one.” Sam hears the laughter in Dean’s voice.
</p><p>“Jerk.” Sam’s elbow barely digs in.
</p><p>They lay there companionably for a few minutes, looking at the sky.
</p><p>“What about you, Sammy?”
</p><p>“Hmm?”
</p><p>“Did you...glow?”
</p><p>“Um, yeah…” He suddenly feels a little shy. “Was different though. Diff’rent colors.”
</p><p>“What color is Sam?”
</p><p>“Kinda...that color between blue and purple? Dunno what it’s called. Like a really dark blue, kinda. Some regular purple and blue mixed up in it.” He doesn’t want to mention the black. “Some, um, magenta, too.”
</p><p>“Magenta? You mean...<em>pink</em>?”
</p><p>Sam groans to himself. He knew better than to say that. “Dean…”
</p><p>“‘S ok, Sammy. I can admit I was wrong about bein’ the pretty one.”
</p><p>Sam sighs, and Dean chuckles.
</p><p>“‘S cool, though. That you saw all that. Y’think it was like...auras, or somethin’?”
</p><p>“Dunno. Dad always says that kinda stuff’s ‘<em>new age claptrap’</em>.”
</p><p>Dean huffs. “Yeah, well, outside the ritual, Dad’s like, allergic to magic. He doesn't know everything.”
</p><p>Sam feels a little sliver of fear. “Dean...that’s why you can’t tell him. You can’t tell Dad.” He takes a shaky breath. “He’ll think there’s somethin’ wrong with me.”
</p><p>“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with you, Sammy. Outside bein’ like, a <em>normal</em> weirdo nerd. But nothin’ to do with this stuff. It’s just...<em>you</em>. This is jus’ you bein’ special, I think.”
</p><p>“Jus’ me bein’ a freak, you mean.”
</p><p>“That's definitely not what I mean. At all.” He jiggles Sam when there’s no reply. “Got it?”
</p><p>Sam turns his face, burying his cheek in Dean’s ribs. 
</p><p>“Yeah, Dean,” he whispers. “I got it.”
</p><p>“Anyway, this is just you and me. ‘S got nothin’ to do with anybody else. I’m not gonna tell Dad.”
</p><p>The breeze whispers to the pines. “...thanks, Dean.”
</p><p>Dean just squeezes him, once.
</p><p>They stare up at the sky, in silence. Sam doesn’t know for how long, doesn’t care. It doesn’t feel like there’s any time here at all. He’d be happy if it never ended.
</p><p>“<em>Whoa!!</em>” 
</p><p>Dean sits half up, almost spilling Sam sideways on the blanket. He settles back down, pulling Sam back to his side with a guilty expression.
</p><p>“Sorry, Sammy. But did you see that??” He points up, towards the southeast. “Big, bright meteor, cut right across the sky!”
</p><p>Sam smiles, dopey and warm. “Yeah, thas’ the Eta Aquarids.”
</p><p>“...the what?”
</p><p>“Eta Aquarid meteor shower, Dean. Happens at the beginnin’ of May, every year.”
</p><p>“...how d’ya <em>know</em> that?? You aren’t even in school yet!”
</p><p>Sam giggles. “‘Cause they said it on the tour. At the observ’tory.” He taps his fingers against his brother’s side. “Y’were too busy pretendin’ to knock over the giant slide rule.”
</p><p>“Oh, yeah. Guess I missed that.” He can almost feel Dean’s smile. “Thas’ cool, though. You get your own fireworks display every year for your birthday.”
</p><p>“Mmhmm.”
</p><p>“Hey now! Don’t fall asleep on me!” He shakes Sam gently. “We gotta stay up till dawn! There’s gotta be a lot more of those meteors, right?”
</p><p>“Yep. There’ll be more closer it gets to morning. Like, more’n a dozen an hour.” He snuggles in closer. “An’ I’m not tired. Just...really comfortable.”
</p><p>“Ok, cool. ‘Cause we’re gonna ride this meteor shower out, and then wash up when the sun rises, and then head home and sleep all day. Look! There’s ‘nother one!” 
</p><p>Sam and Dean watch raptly as the streak of light splits the sky, leaving a glowing trail behind it that fades over the span of a breath.
</p><p>“Whatcha say, Sammy? Wanna watch the sky fall with me?”
</p><p>“...yeah. Yeah, that sounds perfect.”
</p><p>And it is.
</p><p>…..
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>It’s late the next evening, and Dean and Sam are sprawled across the bed, watching <em>The Thing</em> on the grainy television perched on the dresser. The door opens with a swirl of cool air, and John Winchester walks in, a couple of duffle bags slung over his shoulders. He sighs as he drops them on his empty bed, rolls his shoulders.
</p><p>Dean turns the sound down, and they both sit up. John gives them a tired smile. 
</p><p>“Hey, boys.”
</p><p>“Hi, Dad.” Sam gives him a tentative smile back. He seems to be in a pretty good mood tonight.
</p><p>He looks at the flashing figures on the TV. “That all you boys did while I was gone? Watch dumb movies and lay in bed eating junk food?”
</p><p>“Hey!” Dean protests. “<em>The Thing</em> is not <em>dumb</em>! It’s a classic! And Funyuns aren’t junk food, c’mon...corn’s a vegetable!”
</p><p>Sam’s eyes meet Dad’s and they share a little smirk. Dean huffs and shakes his head at the both of them. 
</p><p>“How was Las Cruces, Dad?”
</p><p>“It was...interesting.”
</p><p>Sam knows to leave it alone after that.<em> Interesting</em> isn’t really bad, but it means his dad doesn’t really want to talk about it either.
</p><p>John starts rooting through the bags, unpacking a few weapons, books, clothes. Dean turns the sound back up and flops back down to continue watching aliens terrorize Antarctica. Sam watches their dad as discreetly as he can, looking for signs of injury, or anger. But he just looks tired more than anything.
</p><p>“Oh, Sam, come over here for a minute.”
</p><p>“Yessir.” Sam hops down off the bed and makes his way over to his dad’s side. John pulls a small brown bag out of his leather duffel, crouches down next to Sam.
</p><p>“Do you remember Nelva?”
</p><p>“Yeah, of course!” Sam brightens considerably. “Didya see her??”
</p><p>“Yeah, I did.” John laughs, shakes his head. “She was just about as excited when she asked about you. I swear, you two. You weren’t even three yet when you met, but it was love at first sight. I was sure she was gonna try to adopt you out from under me. Or just waltz out with you when I wasn’t looking.”
</p><p>Sam grins, thinking of the tall woman with the dark, wavy hair cut above her shoulders and the crooked smile. She always took the time to sit and talk with Sam for a bit, even if it meant ignoring the other adults. She was one of the few friends of Dad’s that actually seemed to like Sam. Or at least to notice him, and not be annoyed. Let alone preferring him to Dean, though that thought didn’t sit all that well.
</p><p>“That’s ‘cause she’s got good taste.”
</p><p>“Now you’re starting to sound like Dean.” John chuckles. “Well, anyways, she said that I better make sure she gets to see you this year, but in case I ‘<em>screw that up</em>’, she wanted me to give you this.”
</p><p>He holds the paper bag out to Sam, who takes it gingerly, looks up at his dad questioningly. 
</p><p>“Go on, open it.”
</p><p>Sam unfolds the paper, reaches in and pulls out a thin leather cord with a small brass charm on it. He holds it in his palm, peers closely at it. A four-pointed star shape, with two intersecting lines and a dot at the center.
</p><p>“Oh, wow…" he breathes.
</p><p>His dad smiles. "Here." He takes the cord, ties it around Sam's slender wrist. Trims the excess edges with his pocket knife. "There you go."
</p><p>Sam twists his arm to look at the charm that dangles from it. "It's beautiful."
</p><p>"She does good work. She told me when she finished this one she knew it was meant for you."
</p><p>Sam looks up at him, eyes wide and serious. "...she <em>made</em> it?"
</p><p>"Yep. Just for you."
</p><p>Sam looks at it again, then darts forward and throws his arms around his father. "Thanks, Dad." His voice is muffled in his dad's leather coat.
</p><p>His dad chuckles, brings his arms up around Sam. "Don't thank me, thank Nelva."
</p><p>"I'll thank her, too, next time we see her. Or I can write her a letter?"
</p><p>His dad reaches up, runs his hand through Sam's hair, sighs. "You're a sweet kid, Sammy. I'll see if I can figure somethin' out. She's not always in one place too long."
</p><p>Sam regretfully loosens his hold, pulls back, smiles. "OK, Dad. Thanks."
</p><p>When he drops back on the bed, Dean takes his wrist, examines the charm. "That's pretty cool, Sam." His smile seems genuinely pleased. "I always did like Nelva."
</p><p>Sam leans into Dean's side. "Yeah, me too."
</p><p>His dad doesn't say anything about his birthday, but, this year, Sam doesn't really mind too much. He doesn’t know if anything could have actually made the past few days better, anyways. They were perfect.
</p><p>He never does have another birthday that measures up to that one, but that's OK, too. He never expected to have one like that in the first place. 
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Oof. Almost 15k words for this chapter and I had to leave out some things I had been planning...I honestly don't know what I was thinking. Possibly that this story needed a little brightness at this point, and Dean just took that and ran with it. And ran, and ran.</p><p>If you enjoyed it, please let me know! I'd love to hear from you even if you didn't, too. It helps me figure out what to do better in the future. And I just love hearing what you think; if this story's affected you in any way.</p><p>.....</p><p>Some notes:</p><p>I've always thought of Pastor Jim as an Episcopalian priest. I don't know why. Catholicism didn't seem quite right, but I've always kind of looked at the Episcopal Church as having "all of the ritual! none of the guilt!"</p><p>This would have taken place in '89. I took some (mostly pretty minor) liberties with the exact timing of some things historically. Like, they removed the tagged subway cars between 86-89. Sam's memory was from '88, so they would have probably seen some of them, but not as many as I suggested. And likely not some of the more famous ones mentioned. It's not a big thing, but, if you're bothered by anachronisms, I do apologize.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean kicks at a crushed, faded beer can, not even close to satisfied by the <i>clang</i> it makes off the single remaining hubcap of the mangled Lincoln Continental. He'd hit his mark (he always hits his mark), but the sound is lost in the maze of rust and gravel and aimless, subterranean resentment that envelopes him.</p><p>
  <em>Not this time, Dean. Keep an eye on Sammy for me, ok?</em>
</p><p>Of course. Take care of Sam. That's what it <em>always</em> is; that's why Dean is never going to be the great hunter he's meant to be.</p><p>Target practice this weekend? Nope. Sam volunteered to stay after class for two hours for holiday decorating without asking, and they have to hike twenty miles through the woods with nothing but a tarp, a canteen each, and a knife as punishment.</p><p>Can't go with Dad to take down that black dog, Sammy's got the flu, and Dean's gotta wipe the snot from his glassy-eyed face, hold his head over the trash can, swipe back his damp curls as he sweats all 103 degrees out into the twisted sheets.</p><p>Julia Dobrowski wants to sneak to the lake with him, but Sam came home from school with a black eye and a puffy lip and won't stop sniffling to himself until Dean crawls into bed behind him.</p><p>It's not often that Dean dwells on this, but it's <em>not fair</em>.</p><p>Summer just started, and here they are, stuck at fucking Bobby's for who knows how many weeks, nothing to do but bang around a weed-choked lot full of decaying cars; maybe shoot some cans off a fence. Read some boring-ass lore books, like Dad suggested he do while he was gone.</p><p>Dean doesn't want to read. School's over, and Sam does enough of that for both of them, anyways. He wants to <em>hunt</em>.</p><p>It especially sucks here because Bobby's way out past the outskirts of Sioux Falls. It's not close enough for Dean to walk anywhere interesting. And Bobby would kill him if he tried to hitch from here. And, it doesn't matter, 'cause he's only 13. He's not supposed to hitch unless he absolutely has to. The kind of people that would pick up a kid his age without too many questions are the kind he'd shouldn't be catching a ride with.</p><p>It's bullshit, is what it is. Fucking <em>Summer at Singer's Auto Salvage</em>. It's like the world's most boring made-for-network-TV movie. And he wouldn't even be here if weren't for <em>Sam</em>, if he hadn't been actin' all weird and squirrely for the past month, making Dad reluctant to leave him anywhere on his own, even with Bobby.</p><p>The rock he chucks breaks the rest of the already-shattered windshield of a Pinto that probably used to be yellow. Dean knows that <em>he's</em> not being fair, himself, not really. Bobby's awesome, probably one of the few adults Dean's met that he really trusts, and one of the few, outside his Dad, that sees through Dean's crap and isn't afraid to call him on it. Dean can respect that.</p><p>And, normally, Dean would be thrilled to spend a few weeks out here. Bobby's house may be in the middle of a junkyard, but that's one of the things Dean and Sam love so much about it. So many places for them to explore, hang out, away from anyone else. Even each other, sometimes.</p><p>And spending time with Bobby himself is great. He loves old westerns, like Dean does, and has an awesome old VHS collection of them. He's even picked up a few of their other favorites over the years; Star Wars and Ghostbusters and Alien. Well, Dean's favorites, anyways. Sam's nearly worn through the tape of the battered copy of The Princess Bride, though.</p><p>And over the past few years, whenever they're out here, Bobby's let Dean hang out with him, help out, while he works on cars. Would show him how an engine worked. Show him how to take one apart, how to put it back together. Dean loves it, almost as much as he loves stripping down and reassembling a gun. Maybe more. Machines, weapons, they really listen to him, even when nothing else does.</p><p>But it's not where he's supposed to be right now. He's<em> supposed</em> to be out taking down whatever is ripping the ovaries out of divorced women in Ohio.</p><p>Instead, he's stuck here, <em>keeping an eye on Sam</em>. Sam, who's been more sullen and silent and uptight than usual. Who gets all dramatically twitchy if you dare to enter his precious space and he <em>didn't hear you</em> (which is suspect enough in itself, they both've been trained to hear everything going on around them). Who picks at his food like it's personally offending him, leaving even more than usual on the plate.</p><p>Dean knows when it started: back at that abandoned estate in north Florida about a month ago. Sure, Dean'll admit it had been a fucked up case, anything with kids usually is. Sad and tragic, a house full of ghosts who all died under the age of ten, more than a dozen of 'em. Put them all on edge.</p><p>But it wasn't really a <em>bad</em> hunt or anything. The ghosts weren't killing anyone, not even hurting anyone, just that local teens had started venturing out there to see the "haunted house", and one had fallen through some rotten floorboards and snapped an ankle while running out in a panic, another ha a concussion and some short-term memory issues from taking a tumble down the steep stairwell leading to the basement.</p><p>Otherwise it was safe enough, just a run-of-the-mill spirit cleansing, which is why Dad brought Sammy with them. Ghosts seemed to have a weird kind of an affinity for Sam. It meant that they had to keep him away from angry ones, from violent ones. He was too small to protect himself effectively. But the ones that were just lost, that were looking for release...they'd talk to Sammy sometimes, show up for him when they'd hide from everyone else. It could be really helpful at times, get them info they needed to get the job done, even if Sam often seemed kind of drained afterwards.</p><p>Plus, Sammy's fussiness came in handy with those types of hauntings. He'd measure the distance between the holes they'd dig for burying tethers or spell bags down to the millimeter. Practice drawing the sigils for hours beforehand, like he'd practiced writing the alphabet as a kid.</p><p>It was a safe case. They were never in any danger.</p><p>By the time they'd finished, the house was free of spirits, but Dean realized he hadn't seen or heard Sam in at least three hours. They'd found him sitting, wide-eyed, in the corner of the master bedroom, the slender iron pipe they'd armed him with—just in case—clutched white-knuckled in his skinny fingers. When Dean rushed over, asked him if he was hurt, he'd jerked Dean's hand off his shoulder, shook his head. He stood up with ease, too; no limping, no bruises, no scratches.</p><p>He didn't say anything on the ride home, staring moodily out the window.</p><p>Didn't say anything all night, either, until Dean and John were sitting at the motel room's table, going over records, trying to pin down exactly how the kids had died so Dad could write up the case and close it for good.</p><p>They'd been murdered, that much they knew, of course. It had been brutal, and horrifying, and they'd tried to keep those details from Sam over the preceding week, though Dean suspected he knew, somehow. Eavesdropped on conversations, peeked at the photocopies and old books Dad had collected for research, maybe. Sam could be sneaky when he went after something he wanted, and he always wanted to know <em>everything</em>.</p><p>Dean was torn; it bothered him how upset Sam would get over learning terrible things like that. Somehow, even with their lifestyle, his little brother was still a sensitive kid, took everything to heart. But if he was gonna be a hunter, he needed to toughen up, like Dad always told him. Plus, it kind of served him right a little, maybe, if he was gonna go poking his nose into stuff he'd been told to stay out of. That Dad and Dean had tried so hard to shelter him from.</p><p>"Elliot Carson."</p><p>John had looked up at Sam with an expression Dean couldn't quite identify. Dean glanced over at the list his dad had written down. No Elliot Carson.</p><p>There was a quiet that seemed to stretch on just a bit too long for comfort.</p><p>"Considered that." Their dad said, like it was obvious. "But he was blind. The carvings on the bodies, the...paintings, on the walls of the basement—there's no way a blind man could have made anything that intricate. Not to mention how hard that house would be to navigate for a blind man." </p><p>"It was only in one eye."</p><p>John's gaze sharpened as he looked at Sam. Then he turned, slid one of the older books from the local library out of a stack. Flipped it open to one of the post-it notes curling out of the top. Dean looked at the shadowy black and white picture printed on the page. A middle-aged man, fairly average, a third of his face hidden in shadow. He didn't look murderous or even particularly outstanding. Just your normal guy with an old-fashioned haircut and suit.</p><p>Except for his eyes. There was a rheumy, swirling white cast completely obscuring the iris and pupil.</p><p>John held his magnifying glass with the little flashlight built in, peered at the picture.</p><p>"Huh. Well, I'll be damned."</p><p>Dean leaned in, picked up the magnifying glass his dad put down to grab a stack of photocopies and he rifled through. Sure enough, Carson's right eye was barely visible through the shadows. A clearly defined dark pupil and iris could just be seen.</p><p>"He had help, too..." Sam mumbled. "Jonah. Would find them, lure 'em in. He was an artist..."</p><p>Dean's forehead creased. That name sounded familiar. He glanced down at the yellow legal pad in front of him.</p><p>Oh. Jonah was one of the victims...the last one, in fact. An outlier; he was 17 when he'd been killed.</p><p>Dean watched warily out of the corner of his eye as Dad questioned Sam. Sam nodded, shook his head, but mostly he just shrugged. Eventually, Dad had been satisfied, or had just given up.</p><p>Sure, Dean knew that being locked in a room full of ghosts sucked, but they'd all been caspers, harmless. Just sad little kids waiting to be released from the Veil. And it wasn't like Sam hadn't seen ghosts before.</p><p>He was just pissed that he'd been forced to leave his favorite school, and resentful he'd been made to go on a hunt. This was just his current way of making sure that they both knew he wasn't happy. Of being a brat, and only thinking about himself.</p><p>Dean'd heard it all before. <em>We shouldn't be doing this, Dean. We're too young. It's not safe. It's not </em>fair<em>.</em></p><p>But what isn't fair is Dad having to do it all on his own. Not having anyone he can trust at his back. Risking everything while they sit back in a motel room, watching TV or doing homework.</p><p>What isn't <em>fair</em> was all the people that are hurt and killed by monsters. Dean might be young, but he understood <em>that</em>.</p><p>He hasn't missed the increasingly pathetic and uncertain looks Sam's been casting at him when he thought Dean wasn't looking. Somehow, though, it isn't as satisfying as he'd thought it would be.</p><p>"Dean!"</p><p>A high-pitched voice reaches him from a few rows away. <em>Speak of the devil, and he comes waltzing in</em>, as Caleb liked to say.</p><p>Dean ignores the voice, picks up another rock.</p><p>"Dean?"</p><p>A little closer. Kinda whiney, now.</p><p>Dean feels his lip curl. <em>Just not fair</em>.</p><p>He slices the rock with a vicious overhand. It misses the window, ricochets off the side mirror, goes wide.</p><p>"Ow!"</p><p>Over his left shoulder. Dean sighs, turns around. Is met with Sam, rubbing at his arm, his face both pitiful and scornful.</p><p>"That <em>hit</em> me, you dick!"</p><p>Dean rolls his eyes; no way that did any real damage. And Sam's a tough kid, Dean has seen him ignore far worse. He's just mad, and when Sam's pissy, he can cop an attitude that makes everything sound like the end of the world.</p><p><em>Brat</em>.</p><p>But still..."C'mere."</p><p>Sam shuffles forward warily, but holds his arm up obediently when Dean lifts it, turns it over. Just a little red spot, it'll fade in a few minutes.</p><p>"You're fine. Barely even a mark."</p><p>"I know, s’not that. Y'should just...be more careful not to <em>hurt</em> people."</p><p>"Ok, princess. Wouldn't want to damage your delicate skin, would we."</p><p>Sam snatches his arm back, glares at him. Dean smirks back. He definitely prefers Sam's normal bitchiness to the silent sulking.</p><p>"Bobby said it's time for dinner."</p><p>Oh, yeah, he's annoyed. Dean's about to spout off something flippant, insist on staying out here for a bit longer, not wanting to give in just yet. But...</p><p>"It's pot roast tonight, right?"</p><p>Sam's scowl falters, and he gives Dean a tentative smile. "...yeah. With th'little potatoes an' everything."</p><p>"Sweet." Dean grins. Maybe he shouldn't put all the blame on Sam, anyways. Dad had seemed reluctant to take him on this hunt before he even mentioned Dean's responsibilities. He probably didn't think Dean could handle it, and really, was he wrong?</p><p>He was supposed to make sure Sam was ok on the hunt in Monticello. Looking out for his brother was supposed to be Dean's job, but he'd failed...no wonder Dad didn't trust him.</p><p>"Race ya back to the house!"</p><p>Dean spins and takes off running, doesn't miss the indignant <em>hey!</em> from behind him, followed by the scrambling of gravel under sneakers. He lets Sam trail just behind him most of the way—his legs are long for his height, but he's so much shorter than Dean—before putting on a sprint of speed in the last fifty yards or so.</p><p>Dean's standing on the porch, lazily stretching his arms, when Sam scrambles up, panting.</p><p>"Y-you're such a ch...cheater, jerk." but he's grinning wide, and shakes his sweaty head like a dog, splattering drops all over Dean.</p><p>"Gross." Dean flicks Sam upside the head. "And don't get mad at me just because I'm naturally superior."</p><p>"No, you're jus' naturally...dumb."</p><p>They clamber into the house, laughing and shoving each other, only to quiet down when they hear Bobby's voice coming from the living room. He's not scheduled to be on duty right now, but sometimes hunting calls come in anyways. And an FBI agent wouldn't exactly have a couple of kids bickering in his office.</p><p>"I dunno, John, that doesn't sound like—"</p><p>An exasperated huff.</p><p>"Yeah, I know...but you need to look for straw or reeds, traces of iron or copper in the wounds—"</p><p>Dean rushes in, looking at Bobby hopefully. It's been over a week since he's heard from Dad. Bobby holds his finger up to Dean, goes back to the book he was looking at.</p><p>"Ok...ok...<em>John!</em> Dammit, I'll look into it, alright? But you need to prep as if it is an al-basti, because the chances are high it damn well could be, ok?...You hear me?"</p><p>He sighs, shakes his head.</p><p>"Good. Hey, the boys just came inside, do you want—Sure, but—Yeah, I know, but maybe just a qui—"</p><p>He stops, looks down at the phone in his hand. "Well, you're welcome, and goodbye to you, too. Asshole."</p><p>He looks up at Dean and presses his lips together. "Sorry about that, boys. I didn't mean it. He's just gotta get back to work, wants to make sure no one else—"</p><p>"It's ok, Bobby." Dean says with his <em>no-skin-off-my-back</em> grin. "You're right. He <em>is</em> kind of an asshole sometimes. But he's got good reasons, y'know?"</p><p>And Dean means it. Sometimes hunting means you can't waste time being <em>nice</em>. That's a luxury they don't always have.</p><p>"Dean, look..."</p><p>"Sam said somethin' about pot roast?"</p><p>Bobby sighs, closes his book, jots something down in a notebook.</p><p>"Yeah, you boys go wash up. I'll be there in a few minutes."</p><p>Dean strides into the kitchen, ignores Sam's trepidatious-but-stubborn look, the way he opens his mouth. Tosses the roll of paper towels at him before he can say anything.</p><p>It smells amazing in here, but Dean's appetite suddenly seems to have dried up.</p><p>"Get the table set, Sam. Even if you're on a stupid hunger strike, <em>I'm</em> starving."</p><p>.....</p><p>Sam's been careful around Dean. Not 'cause he's scared of him or anything, really, he just doesn't want to set him off.</p><p>Dean's been better with him since a few days ago. Talking to him again, at least, more than clipped commands, relaying questions from Bobby. Not spending <em>all</em> his time hiding out in places he doesn't think Sam knows about on the property.</p><p>But he knows Dean's hurt by their dad not wanting to talk to him when he called. Well, Dean would say it's that he didn't have time, not that he didn't want to, didn't care. Sam sees it a little differently.</p><p>Dad doesn't care, because he doesn't think it's <em>worth</em> the time when he's on a hunt. He'd make time for it if he did. Like he makes time for drinking, or sharpening knives.</p><p>And Dean wanted to be on that hunt, too. Their dad has been taking him on some of the more dangerous ones for a while now. And it kills Sam each time, not only does he have to worry about Dad never coming back, now he has to worry about Dean, too. Has to imagine him getting torn to shreds or burned or bit or strangled. Bleeding out next to Dad—or maybe worse, alone—in the cold or rain.</p><p>Being gone forever. All so that John can chase down some fever-dream of vengeance.</p><p>Dean doesn't see it that way. Sees it as an honor. Sees it as having earned his dad's trust and respect. When he's left behind, he's sure it's because he's not good enough, that he doesn't measure up.</p><p>Which is stupid. Dad would have to be blind if he didn't see that Dean's capable of doing anything, and of doing it better than almost anybody, even at his age.</p><p>But, either way, despite Dean's currently carefree exterior, Sam knows he's nursing some hidden buried wounds. That it wouldn't take much to irritate him, rile him up, shut him down.</p><p>And it's been too short a time since all of that was directed at Sam, so there's no way he's not gonna tread carefully, do what he can to keep Dean distracted and happy.</p><p>He doesn't completely understand why Dean was as mad at him as he was, though he knows the general shape of it. Dean had shot him dirty, accusing looks in the days after the haunting in Monticello. Because it should have been simple, should have been one of their milk runs, but Sam had fucked up.</p><p>Like usual.</p><p>All he'd had to do is make sure all the ghosts were within the bounds of their perimeter while they did the cleansing. And the kids were fine. They wanted to go, wanted to be free, to get away from the horror, from being trapped in the place they'd died so terribly.</p><p>But he should have known better than to listen to Jonah, the eldest and least timid of them, when he'd insisted they wait out the end in the bedroom at the end of the hall, since that's where they'd all felt the safest when they were still alive.</p><p>Should've known, but, like Dad always said, being naïve is worse than being stupid. Because that's something he could actually change, if he wanted to.</p><p>So he'd ended up doing the wrong thing, again, and gotten himself locked in a room. Locked in with all the kids and...well, he'd decided last week he wasn't gonna think about <em>that</em> anymore.</p><p>But that didn't mean he couldn't think about how useless he was, locked in that room like a dumb, willing victim, waiting for Dad and Dean to finish the job, to fix everything, to come and rescue him.</p><p>Like usual.</p><p>He'd known that Dad would be disappointed in his failure, but he hadn't been expecting Dean to take it quite so hard. It had been cemented for him when Dean had stopped and stared at him while they were packing up the next day, like he was trying to figure out why Sam is how he is, and why they'd put up with him for so long.</p><p>"Why didn't you say anything before? About the killer?"</p><p>Sam just dropped his eyes to the floor, shook his head. He couldn't find the way to tell him that it was because he <em>hadn't known</em> at that point, that he'd missed it when he'd looked through the research while they were gone. That he'd gone in blindly with a target on his back.</p><p>If he had paid attention, he'd have known that he should have stayed outside. Dean and Dad could have handled it on their own, been safe. They were too old, he'd realized that, after he'd found out everything the hard way.</p><p>He heard Dean scoff. "Well, it could've been <em>helpful</em>, Sam. Might've been somethin' we needed to know, there coulda been some kind of danger. We were lucky, but maybe think about that next time, ok?"</p><p>Sam's cheeks blazed with shame, but he didn't say anything to defend himself.</p><p>Dean was right.</p><p>Either way, Dean seems to have forgiven him now, mostly, at least. And Sam's nightmares have tapered off back to normal levels. So he's gonna enjoy the tenuous peace and do his best to preserve it.</p><p>And that peace lasts, through viewings of The Goonies and Return of the Jedi. And though it’s clear neither of them feels much like training, it lasts through Dean helping Sam practice shooting with his left hand, and Sam showing Dean some moves with their rondel dagger that he'd learned from his friend Pasquale back in Philadelphia, whose dad had been a Nova Scrimia instructor before they'd moved to the US.</p><p>It lasts until Tuesday.</p><p>Sam's heading towards Bobby's study with an armful of books, wanting to ask him about some similarities he’d noticed in the Hyakki Yagyō, the Wild Hunt, and Samhain. He hears Bobby's voice, though, and pauses in the hallway. He doesn't mean to eavesdrop, but there's a particular, familiar note of irritation in his voice, and then Sam hears -</p><p>"I dunno, John. I think you're not giving them enough credit."</p><p>And then Sam hears a sigh, and it's definitely his father's voice. Bobby must have him on speakerphone, hands full with something, expecting the boys to be outside like they usually are on a nice day like this.</p><p>"I give them exactly as much credit as they earn."</p><p>"...sure y'do. But this—John, this is a big thing. If you're dead set on them being hunters, and I know you are, you can't isolate them like this. Meeting's, well, they can be a pain in the ass, all that posturing, havin' to put up with the assholes just as much as the good ones. But they're gonna need the community, what there is of it, need the resources and the backup it can give 'em when they're huntin'."</p><p>"They have us. They have <em>me</em>." Gruff, irritated.</p><p>"Yeah, yeah. They got each other, too. But that can't be <em>all</em> they have. Hell, we can't even guarantee we're gonna be alive from one day to the next. What're they gonna do then?"</p><p>Silence. "You can't tell me you trust all of those fuckers."</p><p>"No, not all of them. But there are plenty that will watch out for them if they need watchin' out for. You gotta get them out, introduce them, at some point. And these only happen every five or six years, so it's not like you got a lot of opportunities, here. Plus, some of the training, they ain't gonna get anywhere else."</p><p>"There's Gatherings..."</p><p>"Not the same, and you know it. Anyways, what are you so worried about happenin'?"</p><p>"It's...I don't know, Bobby. It's not Dean I'm worried about. He'll be fine. Hell, he'd love it, he's a natural. Would jump for the chance to show off. And they'd love him, he'll have 'em wrapped around his finger in a day. But Sam..."</p><p>Sam's stomach sinks. He can guess what he's likely to hear from the tone of John's voice.</p><p>"What about Sam? You don't think they'd love <em>him</em>, too?"</p><p>And Sam will forever be grateful to Bobby, will love him no matter what else happens, just for the sharpness in his tone right then.</p><p>John snorts on the other end of the line. Sam inches forward, presses himself into the shadows in the corner outside Bobby's door.</p><p>"I think Sam'll hide out in the corner, watching everyone, trying to figure out what makes 'em tick, like he does. Either avoid 'em or creep 'em out. Won't give 'em a <em>chance</em> to love him."</p><p>"That's bullshit and you know it. He's a sweet kid, especially if you spend any time gettin' to know him. And, y'know, you're gonna have to get over him bein' smarter than you <em>some</em> day."</p><p>"Nah, I'll hold <em>that</em> against him for as long as I can." But he laughs, and Sam's pretty sure his voice sounds amused, maybe even a little fond.</p><p>But then his voice changes, becomes serious. "But it's not about whether or not he's a sweet kid. Sam's <em>different</em>, Bobby. Some of 'em, they'll see it, too."</p><p>Bobby sighs. "He's just a kid, you id'jt. A good one, too."</p><p>"Maybe. But don't act like I'm wrong here. You've seen it, too. Or did you forget what you said to me after he caught the mistake in the spell for your protective charms back in November? Kept you from opening yourself up to all kinds of nasty shit with that mislabelled herb. Knew, somehow, that <em>somethin'</em> was wrong, even though he had no idea why he'd freaked out."</p><p>"May damn well have saved my life with that one."</p><p>"Sure, but that part's a given for hunters. That's what I'm training them to do, listen to their instincts, act. But do you think everyone's gonna see it that way? Think it's good, or even harmless? Gonna ignore the signs, pretend he's a normal kid?"</p><p>"Yeah, well...I'm not gonna lie. Sure, he's not like normal kids..."</p><p>And Sam turns away, hurries down the hall as quietly as he can. Doesn't want to hear any more. Shouldn't have heard that much. Wishes he hadn't.</p><p>He already knew John thinks he's a freak. Thinks there's something wrong with him. He catches it in the way he looks at him sometimes. In the questions he asks Sam, carefully probing. In the way he tries to keep Sam away from everyone, keep him hidden: from other hunters, from clergy, from weapons and charms dealers. It's been clear to Sam for years now, even though Dean refuses to see it, just thinks Sam's being paranoid and a drama queen.</p><p>But he didn't think Bobby felt that way, too.</p><p>Sam sinks down, leans against the bumper of an old school bus, stomach roiling.</p><p>Bobby's gangly mutt snuffles over and flops down, dropping his head into Sam's lap. Sam pets at him absently, scratches behind his ears. Squints up at the clear, cloudless blue sky.</p><p>"Whadda you think, Chaucer? Hmmm, boy? You think I'm a freak, too?"</p><p>Chaucer <em>wuffs</em> softly into his lap, rolls over so Sam can get at his belly.</p><p>"Yeah, you're right. It's just facts, isn't it? But you don't care, do you, you good boy? You like me anyways."</p><p>Chaucer licks his hand. Bobby'd rolled his eyes when he'd seen the dog trailing behind Sam, ignoring Bobby entirely when he'd called for him. <em>You stealin' my own dog from me, huh, Sam?</em></p><p>"Well, you just don' know any better, but that's ok."</p><p>He sighs, staring at the wind moving through the pines at the edge of the lot. Sometimes he misses school. At least he knows what he's supposed to do there, is good at it.</p><p>Not that school is always great—there's a lot of shit Sam has to put up with there, too. It's exhausting having to move from school to school all the time, put up with the questions, the whispers, the stares. This year had been particularly bad; six schools total.</p><p>Sam also has to put up with a lot of what can't be called anything else but bullying. He knows he's far from the only kid in the world who has to deal with it, and some of them have it much worse, so he tries not to complain about it much. But sometimes it just wears him down. He seems to be a target for it more than a lot of other kids.</p><p>Maybe it's his perpetual "new kid" status. Maybe it's his obvious poverty: the many-times-mended hand-me-downs, the unruly home-cut hair, the frayed thrift-store school supplies. Maybe it's how scrawny and small he is, how plain and goofy-looking. Maybe it's that he's usually smarter than a lot of the other kids, works harder. Does well in class, gets excited by learning things most of the other kids think is boring and pointless.</p><p>Or maybe it's that he's a freak, and they just <em>know</em>.</p><p>It's probably some lucky combination of all those things, because Dean's just as new and just as poor, and doesn't get the kind of shit Sam does. But he’s attractive, charming, and an unambiguous badass. Nothing like Sam. </p><p>And Sam knows that's clear to other kids, because they've told him as much. Express shock that Dean and he are related, <em>you guys? no way, you're brothers?</em> Tell him how cool Dean is, as if he doesn't know already or can't comprehend what <em>cool</em> even is. Snicker that Dean must've used all the good genes up, and <em>too bad for Sam</em>.</p><p>He gets compared to Dean all the time. Even one of his friends—he always seemed to make one or two among the like-minded geeks or nerds or freaks—had asked him if it was hard being Dean's brother, since no one was ever gonna notice Sam when he was around.</p><p>Sam had shrugged. He's used to it. And, honestly, sometimes not being noticed is better. Is all he could ask for. Is better than the alternative.</p><p>Sam sighs, leans over, wraps his arms around Chaucer, buries his face in the fur behind his neck. Feel the sun warming up his back through his threadbare t-shirt.</p><p>"I wish I could go home, sometimes." He murmurs.</p><p>He's not even really sure what he means by that. He only knows that it's true.</p><p>.....</p><p>Dean twitches his way out of sleep, not sure yet what woke him.</p><p>Maybe it's that it's fucking <em>hot</em> in here.</p><p>Bobby's spare room only has a sputtering, tiny AC unit. The windows are too narrow for anything that puts out air that's actually cool, let alone cold. Half the time they don't bother, the weak draft of lukewarm breeze not being worth the noise.</p><p>Dean twists over, punches his pillow, tries to get comfortable in the sweaty sheets. He sighs. Decides it's definitely better here in the winter, no matter how cold it gets then. Sub-zero temperatures sound pretty freakin' awesome right about now, actually.</p><p>He's trying to force himself back to sleep when he hears it. The noise that probably woke him up in the first place.</p><p>A thready whimper, coming from the bed next to his.</p><p>He quiets his breathing, listens. Unlike Dean’s bad dreams, which tend to cluster around certain events (as well as one specific time of year) mSam's nightmares come and go over time, with no pattern Dean's ever been able to figure out. He can never predict how bad they'll be, either. Sometimes they stay like this, just below the threshold of anything serious; some whines, a few mumbled pleas, and then he'll settle down back into slumber, and Dean would follow him shortly after.</p><p>He hopes this will be one of those nights.</p><p>But his luck is out to lunch, it seems. The noises from Sam's bed multiply, the whines and whimpers getting louder, more frequent, joined by choked off cries and slurred <em>nos and stops and pleases. He can see Sam's skinny frame twisting under the sheets.</em></p><p>Dean, sighs, gets up. Sits on the edge of Sam's bed, starts talking to him soothingly.</p><p>"Sam, hey, Sammy. It's ok. Wake up, Sammy...you're alright, you're safe. I'm here, Sam. <em>Shhhhh</em>...time to wake up, ok?"</p><p>He doesn't touch him yet, knows better than that. It can sometimes set him off, flailing in his sleep against whatever's tormenting him. And Sam may be small, but he's ferocious when he's scared, even if unconscious. And his knuckles and elbows are <em>sharp</em> and <em>boney</em>. It only took one bruised cheekbone before Dean learned to start with the talking before he tries to shake Sam out of it.</p><p>Tonight, talking isn't working. Once he lets out a shout that's loud enough for Bobby to hear down the hall, Dean takes action. Grabs Sam's wrists, both at the same time, presses him down to the mattress as he shakes him gently.</p><p>"Sam, Sammy, it's me, it's Dean. Wake up, Sam!"</p><p>He hates doing this. Knows it's terrifying for Sam to wake up from his nightmares restrained like this, held down. But, sometimes, it's the only thing that works, and leaving him lost in whatever terrors he's dreaming about seems far crueler.</p><p>With a sharp cry, Sam bucks under him and his eyes snap open wide in the moonlight.</p><p>"You're alright, it's ok. I'm here, Sam, you're safe." He croons nonsense while Sam's gasps start to slow down, while his shaking fades to trembling.</p><p>"...Dean?"</p><p>"Yeah, it's me, Sammy. We're at Bobby's, remember?"</p><p>"...yeah..." Sam chokes out, and he sounds so sad and lost and small that Dean feels something awful hook into his heart and tear.</p><p>He lets go of Sam's arms, pulls the sheets off him, slides down so he's laying next to Sam. Sam immediately turns over and wraps his arms around Dean, burying his face in Dean's chest. Dean pulls him close, runs his fingers through Sam's hair.</p><p>Lets him cry it out, silently.</p><p>When Dean's t-shirt has stopped getting any wetter, he asks quietly. "What was it this time?"</p><p>He feels Sam shake his head.</p><p>"I dunno. Don't remember."</p><p>Dean knows it's not true, but he also knows not to push.</p><p>"Ok, well, it's over now, right?"</p><p>Sam nods.</p><p>"You gonna be able to get back to sleep?"</p><p>This gets him a shrug.</p><p>"Maybe...will you stay? Sleep here?"</p><p>"Yeah, sure." He was going to, anyways.</p><p>Sam's breathing evens out, though Dean can tell he's not asleep yet. Just quiet, thoughtful.</p><p>That almost worries Dean more than the nightmares. Thoughtful Sam at 2 AM can be a lot to handle. He's given Dean a few nightmares of his own after some of their talks.</p><p>"Dean?"</p><p>Dean suppresses a sigh.</p><p>"Yeah?"</p><p>"Do you think...do y'think people can be bad, like, <em>truly</em> bad. I mean real, actual evil? Like monsters are?"</p><p>Oof. Yeah, it's gonna be one of <em>those</em> nights.</p><p>"Yeah, Sammy. I'm pretty sure they can."</p><p>"I thought so..."</p><p>There's a moment of quiet. Dean keeps stroking Sam's soft hair absently.</p><p>"How can you tell? If someone's...evil. <em>Really</em> evil, not just an asshole. Not just crazy."</p><p>"I dunno, I mean, you can't always tell, I don't think. Some people seem normal, seem nice. Are good at pretendin'. I guess eventually it comes out, if you're payin' attention. In what they do or what they say. Or both."</p><p>"What if...someone's just <em>fundamentally</em> bad...like, inside, they're evil. Put together all wrong, dark and twisted. Are they still evil if they only act good, only say good things?"</p><p>"...I dunno, Sammy."</p><p>"And...like, what if someone's not really an evil person, they're actually good, but they do bad things? Does that make <em>them</em> evil?" His fingers twist in Dean's shirt. "Even if they have like, no choice? Or if <em>not</em> doing them would be even worse."</p><p>"I..I think you always have a choice, Sammy. There's good choices and there's bad choices, and, like, 's not hard to know which is which."</p><p>"I dunno. I think...some stuff is really complicated, you know? Good and bad at the same time, or, like, depends on what other stuff is goin' on around it. But, yeah...I guess some choices, they make sense no matter what. Like killing someone. I mean, killing's bad, right?"</p><p>"Yeah, 'course it's bad."</p><p>"...Dad kills. He kills a <em>lot</em>."</p><p>"That's different. Those aren't <em>people</em>."</p><p>"How's it diff'rent? They're not animals. Not all of them, anyways. It's still killing."</p><p>"Yeah, but monsters are <em>evil</em>."</p><p>"So, it's ok to kill evil people, too, then?"</p><p>"...I, just...<em>no</em>, Sam. We don't kill people."</p><p>"Witches are people."</p><p>"Sam...look, you've just gotta trust me on this. Ok? Killing monsters—it doesn't make Dad evil. It <em>saves</em> people. It makes him a hero. Ok?"</p><p>Silence. Dean knows he's not likely to get Sam to ever agree to say their dad's a hero. Too stubborn, too resentful.</p><p>Sam shifts in Dean's arms, shuffles closer, sticks his cold little feet between Dean's shins.</p><p>Small voice. "He wants <em>us</em> to kill, too."</p><p>Dean swallows. What does he even say to that? Even though he's got no doubts that there's nothing evil about hunting—knows that it's good, it's right—still...that's a lot for a kid Sam's age to deal with. Dean still struggles with the idea, himself, sometimes. When the monsters look like people, especially.</p><p>"Look, Sam...you don't have to worry about that right now, ok? Y'got a few years before you'll start huntin' for real. It'll be clear when you're actually doin' it what's <em>right</em> and what's <em>wrong</em>. You're just...you're too young to really understand it right now. Ok?"</p><p>He feels Sam stiffen in his arms, knows he fucked up. Dad pulls that shit with Sam all the time. Won't tell him things, won't explain why they're doing things, says Sam's too young to understand.</p><p>But Dean knows, and thinks their father does, too, that Sam understands some things far better than people give him credit for, far better than he should. Usually already knows why their dad does stuff, just wants him to admit it to them, be honest.</p><p>Being told he can't understand something, that he doesn't deserve to know...that's probably worse than being hit, for Sam. He definitely seems to take physical punishment better than he does being shut down, for sure.</p><p>"Look, Sam, I don't mean it like that, ok? Just, this stuff—I don't got it figured out. I don't even think most adults have it figured out. People've been arguin' about this shit for <em>thousands</em> of years. It's like...philosophy and shit. You and I aren't gonna be able to figure out, like, good and evil at two in the morning in a twin bed in Bobby's spare room, ok?"</p><p>Sam relaxes a little, but is still quiet.</p><p>"I didn't mean you couldn't understand it. Hell, you c'n probably understand it better than I can. I didn't start thinkin' about shit like this till, well...I barely think about shit like this even now. I'm too stupid to ever hope to figure it out. I just gotta go with what I know is right, y'know?"</p><p>"Shut up. You are <em>not</em> stupid, Dean." Angry, defiant, certain. It makes something warm swell in Dean's chest.</p><p>"Yeah, ok, Sammy. But this here, this ain't the kind of thing I'm really good at, y'know? I don't sit in the car thinkin' about deep shit. I think about what I'm gonna get when we stop to eat, or if there's gonna be any cute chicks in my class at our next school, or if Indiana Jones could beat Han Solo in a fight."</p><p>He hears Sam huff.</p><p>"But, Sam...there's one thing I know, ok? Dad...he's not evil. You were right, you know? Some choices, some of them ain't always so clear. I think some of them are pretty hard, probably. But Dad, he makes the best ones he can. He's <em>good</em>, ok? I know you get mad at him sometimes, but he's not a bad person."</p><p>"I <em>know</em> Dad's not evil, Dean. That's not what I was sayin', not at all....It wasn't even about him, really, I just...I just don't know if I..."</p><p>Sam sighs.</p><p>"I just don't <em>know</em>, I guess. I start thinkin' and my head just goes round and round and there's just more and more to think about and it gets more and more confusing and I feel smaller and smaller and then I feel like I'm fallin' sometimes, in the dark all around me...or somethin'."</p><p>Dean runs his hand up and down Sam's arm soothingly.</p><p>"That's why you just shouldn't start. Thinkin', that is. That's <em>my</em> philosophy, anyways. Can't get confused by all those thoughts if you don't have any."</p><p>"...<em>Dean</em>. Y'r such an idiot." He laughs, a little thickly, into Dean's chest.</p><p>"Exactly my point. 'S the only way to live."</p><p>......</p><p>Dean's not bein' a dick to Sam anymore, at least. But that doesn't mean that Dean's ok.</p><p>Each day that goes by without hearing from John just takes something out of him, hollows him out, draws his face tighter. Sam's pretty sure it's two parts worry, one part rejection, and one part a deep, wounded anger that Dean would never, ever admit to himself that he was capable of feeling towards his father.</p><p>Sam, he's got no such compunctions. He's <em>pissed</em>.</p><p>Dean doesn't deserve this.</p><p>Hell, <em>Sam</em> doesn't even deserve it. It's not like they haven't been left behind before, sometimes even alone. Over the past year, Dad's even taken Dean on weekend hunts and left Sam by himself, which is its own problem in and of itself, and if anyone bothered to ask Sam how he felt about it, he'd have <em>plenty</em> to say.</p><p>But it's not the problem right now.</p><p>The problem is that it's been almost three weeks since they've talked to him, since they've heard his voice. Well, Sam's heard his voice, and kind of wished he hadn't, but John doesn't know that. But he's totally aware that he hasn't talked to them at all. He's checked in with Bobby a handful of times, for lore, for info. Not one of those times has he bothered to even just say <em>hi</em> to his sons.</p><p>Which is why Sam finally decides to tell Dean.</p><p>They're sitting up in the "treehouse" they built in the patch of woods on the southwest corner of the property. It's pretty much just a wooden platform with a skeletal frame of two-by-fours and a tarp they'd lashed on as a roof. Dean's sitting on the edge, legs hanging off, slowly whittling a stick into a shorter, pointier stick. Sam's lying on his back on the "porch", which is the two foot strip of platform that the tarp doesn't cover.</p><p>Sam would be content, staring up at the branches above him, watching the leaves shiver and the sunlight wink as the trees whisper messages to each other. It's not exactly cool out here, but it's not the swollen, roiling heat that blankets the junkyard and the house. The shade of the trees, the soft wind winding through through them, over Sam's bare legs and arms, the near-quiet filled only with the rustling leaves, the chant of cicadas, a pair of curious chickadees gossiping about them, the steady scrape of Dean's knife as as he peels curls of blond wood and moss-spotted bark into his lap.</p><p>It's times like these that Sam thinks he can understand what it means when people say they like to <em>unwind</em>. It's like something tightly coiled in him, tangled and snarled to near the point of strangulation, starts to loosen up, to unknot itself, let its ends slip into the deep green breeze and slide through the branches surrounding him.</p><p>It's nice.</p><p>It's more than that, it's <em>peaceful</em>. Sam's usually too...diffuse...to do any kind of thinking in these very rare moments, but if he did, it might make him sad to realize how little of that peace he felt normally, in the rest of his life.</p><p>But today, he can't quite get there. He starts to blur at the edges, to spread out a little, and then, suddenly, he'll snap back like he's touched something razor's-edge sharp, or hot like the red rings of a stove. Something angry and hurt and lowering.</p><p>It's Dean, of course.</p><p>Sam's noticed after each of his past few birthdays, after Dean and he perform their ritual (still a secret, still sacred, Dean makes sure they never miss it), that he can sometimes <em>feel</em> Dean. Like, Sam's aware of where he is, what he's doing (vaguely, at least), what he's...projecting, maybe.</p><p>Feelings, not thoughts. The day he starts reading Dean's mind is the day he runs away and joins a monastery.</p><p>It's only when Dean's nearby, and, usually, Sam has to kind of push for it to make it more than just a faint feeling on his periphery. It's been stronger, though, since his birthday this past May.</p><p>And when Dean is upset, when Dean is angry, like he is now...well, it's unavoidable.</p><p>Dean likes to mock Sam for being broody, being moody, but Sam really thinks Dean's the real master of hurt feelings. He'll maintain that he's fine, he'll smile (even though his eyes are flat), he'll joke, but...it's like a monolith towering behind them, like a boulder hanging over them. Dean may or may not ever let it fall, but it's always there, casting a shadow over everything, and anyone that knows him can sense it.</p><p>It's even more pronounced now that Sam's got this extra Dean-sensory-perception thing going on. He tries to be careful with Dean when he's like this, but it can be so overwhelming. Especially 'cause Dean will never just let Sam <em>help him</em> when he's like this. Not that Sam always, or maybe even ever, knows how to really help Dean, but <em>still</em>. Dean, though, he just denies, puts up walls, turns around and accuses Sam himself of various transgressions. Sam's left to find a way to worm his way in, without setting off the trap.</p><p>"You ever heard of a Meeting?"</p><p>There’s a pause in the scraping of the knife.</p><p>"...uh, <em>yeah</em>, Sammy. I may not be a straight A student like you, but I got a basic vocabulary, you know."</p><p>Sam ignores Dean's snide tone.</p><p>"No, I mean like a <em>hunter</em> Meeting."</p><p>There's a noise, Dean twisting around to look at Sam. Sam's eyes are closed, but he can <em>feel</em> it.</p><p>"Is that like 'Meeting' with a capital <em>m</em>?"</p><p>
  <em>Yes.</em>
</p><p>Sam shrugs, cracks open an eye. "I dunno. Maybe, though."</p><p>Dean's peering at Sam with curiosity, brow furrowed. The shadow hanging over them hasn't disappeared, but it's maybe receded a bit.</p><p>"Where'd you hear 'bout this?"</p><p>Sam rolls over on his stomach, chin resting on his arms as he looks at Dean.</p><p>"Well...I overheard Bobby, a few days ago." Here comes the risky part. "He was talkin' to Dad."</p><p>Something flickers over Dean's face, so fast and faint that anyone else would have missed it.</p><p>"Oh?" Dean asks with careful disinterest.</p><p>"Yeah. He didn't know I heard him. Don't say anything, Dean, ok? Please? Don't want Bobby to get mad at me."</p><p>"Course I won't, Sammy. But Bobby couldn't get mad at you, pretty sure, even if he tried."</p><p>Sam shrugs. "Anyways, it sounded really...interesting. Somethin' like Gatherings, but maybe...bigger? Like, more organized and longer, maybe? They teach stuff about huntin', too. An', well...it sounded like all the hunters would be there."</p><p>Dean's eyebrows shoot up, but he's skeptical. "<em>All</em> the hunters?"</p><p>"Well, maybe not all the hunters, o'course. But it sounded like it'd be a <em>lot</em> of them, like, they try not to miss it. Like it's <em>important</em>."</p><p>Dean looks disgruntled. "I wonder why we've never been, then. 'Cause that sounds amazing."</p><p>"Well, they only happen every five or six years, and there's one this summer. So, when the last one happened, I would've been a little kid—"</p><p>"You're still a little kid, shrimp."</p><p>"—shut up, Dean—but, well, it seemed like Dad doesn't really trust all that many hunters all together. Prolly thought it wouldn't be safe for us."</p><p>Dean returns the wry grimace Sam gives him. For all that their father puts them in danger near daily, for all that he leaves them to fend for themselves, for all that he himself is sometimes the thing that's not safe, he's consistent in his blanket distrust of all but a few hunters where his sons are concerned. It frustrates them both, but for different reasons.</p><p>"Figures." There's a silence while Dean chews this over and Sam lets him. "Do ya...did it sound like we were goin' this year?"</p><p>Sam pauses. "...I dunno. It sounded like he was thinkin' about it. Bobby sounded like he was all for it, but Dad's still kinda uncertain. I think...I think he just needs to know that we're ready. That we'll listen to him an' be careful an' stuff."</p><p>"Hmm. I think we can convince him, don't you, Sammy?" Dean gives him a conspiratorial grin.</p><p>"I think so, too." Sam grins back. "But...I don't think we should tell him we found out 'cause I was eavesdropping. That's not the kind of <em>listenin' to him</em> that he's gonna like."</p><p>"That's for sure, you little sneak." It's teasing, affectionate. "I guess...maybe I could tell him I overheard it from some hunters when we were in Abilene in April. That swarm of chupacabras; there were five other hunters in an' out and sometimes I'd be at the squat cleaning weapons while Dad was out scouting, and they'd talk about all kinds of shit. He'd never know."</p><p>Sam considers this. "...that might work."</p><p>"Of course it'll work. Then I just gotta figure out a way to make him believe I won't let him down while we're there."</p><p>Something lances through Sam's chest as he watches his brother. Dean really believes it; that Dad might be hesitant because he thinks <em>Dean</em> isn't good enough. It's just not fair.</p><p>"I don't...he's not worried about you, I don't think. I mean, you've been around lots of hunters before on y'r own. You just <em>said</em> that. I think...he's worried about me."</p><p>"Yeah...he always does worry about you more, I guess. But, I mean, <em>I'll</em> look out for you, Sammy. I'm not gonna let anyone there mess with you." He looks doubtful, suddenly. "Do y'think...maybe I've been screwin' that up recently, though..."</p><p>Sam feels a wave of frustration wash over him. When'll Dean ever get it through his skull that <em>he's</em> not the one to blame for Sam's fuck-ups? He just never <em>listens</em> to Sam when he tries to tell him.</p><p>Sam just wishes he'd stop taking responsibility for Sam's faults and start taking responsibility for the ones that are actually his own.</p><p>"Dean...<em>no</em>, jus'—that's not what's goin' on. You're fine. Y'r not the one screwin' up. <em>He</em> knows that, <em>I</em> know that..." Sam gestures helplessly. "He doesn't worry <em>about</em> me more...I just <em>worry him</em> more, 'cause I'm -"</p><p>He falls silent. Dean's giving him this look, a little confused, a little anxious, a little sad. Mostly disbelieving, though.</p><p>Sam thinks that's not because Dean doesn't know. <em>Everyone</em> knows that Sam's a freak. Hearing Bobby say so just confirmed that. It's that Dean doesn't want to accept it. Sam's kind of grateful for that, in a way. Dean loves him enough that he refuses to believe that his little brother might be...<em>wrong</em>.</p><p>But he also hates it. Resents it. Because it means the kid that Dean loves, the sweet, nerdy, annoying, innocent brother...it's not <em>him</em>.</p><p>It's not Sam that Dean loves. Not really.</p><p>All those things that Dean sees, it's not Sam, not the <em>real</em> Sam. And real Sam...he can't live up to that perfect, imaginary boy. He'll never be able to. He's twisted and dark, screwed up and scared, all dirty and sick on the inside.</p><p>And one day, Dean's gonna see it, too.</p><p>It makes Sam want to curl up and die when he thinks of everything he'll lose when that happens, but...he also wishes Dean'd just wake up and recognize it <em>now</em>. Maybe -just maybe—Dean'll see him, really see him for <em>what</em> and<em> who</em> he is, and still find a way to love him. It might not be likely, but it's still <em>possible</em>.</p><p>Even if it's less than the devotion Dean feels now—even if it's only a tiny fragment of it—still...sometimes Sam thinks he would prefer that. Because then maybe Dean won't expect Sam to be someone he can never be, and Sam will finally stop disappointing him.</p><p>As much as it hurts to know his father resents him, thinks he’s inadequate, it's not as bad as the times when he lets Dean down. </p><p>Dad's got no blinders on when it comes to Sam. John doesn't expect much from him anymore. Sure, he gets angry, gets frustrated, punishes Sam, but...Sam can tell he's resigned to it happening in the first place.</p><p>But with Dean...there's still a chance, however small it might be. Still a chance for someone to know him, really know him, and still find a way to love him...</p><p>He doesn't think it's likely. But he'll hold on to that tiny thread of hope until it finally breaks for good.</p><p>Sam changes tack. "He just still sees me as a little kid, y'know? Like, he doesn't really think I can hold my own, or whatever. An' he doesn't blame you for that, he just...has no idea, really."</p><p>"No idea 'bout what?"</p><p>"Like...he doesn't know that I broke that sixth-grader's nose in February, that kid Ernie that kept pushin' me around and stealin' shit from me, and then tried to choke me. Doesn't know I kicked out his ankles from underneath him, kneed him in balls, made him cry. He only saw the swollen eye and the split lip an' the bruises on my neck and assumed I <em>lost</em>." He shrugs. "Wouldn't listen to me either, just told me to stop gettin' other kids riled up at me, stop bein' a target."</p><p>"That's dumb. I mean, you're still pretty small, sure, but you're not some little wuss. An' kids are assholes, it's not your fault."</p><p>"Well, I guess we both know that. Just need to convince Dad."</p><p>"What, like you think maybe we should get in a fight in front of him, let you win?"</p><p>"...what? <em>No</em>, Dean...wait, are you serious?"</p><p>"...No."</p><p>"Dad'd never believe it. Anyways, I was just thinkin...maybe we could train more? Like, really push it for as long as we're here. Study up on lore, Bobby's got so much here. Just, y'know...go extra hard on the <em>bein' hunters</em> thing."</p><p>"Hmmm..." Dean's thoughtful. "Make him <em>see</em> we're takin' it serious. That we can be disciplined and stuff. That he can trust us even when he's not around."</p><p>"Yeah, somethin' like that."</p><p>"You think it'll work?"</p><p>Dean grinning, looks genuinely happy; excited, for the first time in weeks. Sam's chest clutches—he loves seeing Dean like this, but...he'll never say this to anybody, but he shares John's fears. Hunters don't live long if they don't have good instincts. Some of them'll be sure to see through to what Sam really is.</p><p>But Dean's right, kind of. He's not a wuss, not entirely. He knows he's too soft for the life they live, too weak, but...he'll fight if he has to. And really, who's dumb enough to fuck with one of John Winchester's sons right under his nose?</p><p>"I dunno." Sam shrugs again. "Worth a try. Do y'got a better idea?"</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>There's two (maybe three, tops) chapters left of this story, and then I'll begin the next one in this series. I'm splitting them up by "eras", since it would get too unwieldy otherwise. This one is childhood, the next is adolescence. That does mean that the ratings have changed for this story, which is just as well, because they're kids and there's no smut or actual slash here. Later stories will be a different matter (which is probably obvious if you're reading <i>Pretty When You Cry</i>).</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Artwork: The Ritual</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was gonna wait till after the last chapter of the stories in this series to post any art, but I've had so little time to write this month so far, but painting takes less out of me, and I didn't want anyone thinking I forgot this story. I've got about half the next chapter written, but it's slow going.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
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</p><p>I don't usually post my sketches when I paint, because they tend to be really messy and loose, but there's something about their expressions in this one that I really liked. So here you go, if you're into that kind of thing.</p><p>
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